


Dreams of a Life

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:49:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 49,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter One<br/>Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings both past and present.<br/>Rating: R (for entire fic)<br/>Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, Homophobia<br/>Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~3,541.<br/>Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name. EWE fic, and Snape didn't die.<br/>Summary: In a split second, life changes.  Either you hang on and cope with it, or you get lost in the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Dreams of a Life - Chapter One**  
  
  
  
The sound of an alarm blaring tore Harry from the dream he was having. He came to with wide eyes and a dry throat. Blinking, he looked at the darkened room and saw light poking in around the edges of the curtains, and through the messy crack down the middle where they had not been properly closed.  
  
“Never closes them right,” he muttered and closed his eyes again, nuzzling against his pillow. He shifted forwards into the warm body in his arms. “Git.”  
  
There was no answer to his sleepy ramblings but Harry didn't expect one. Ron was generally dead to the world as soon as his head hit the pillow, and if he wasn't, there was something wrong. Harry took a deep breath from the back of the man's neck and held it in his nostrils, enjoying the smell of sweat and natural eau-de-Ron. He allowed himself to steal a kiss from the same flesh and smiled to himself.  
  
Closing his eyes, he idly wondered how long they had before the alarm went off. Once it did the usual would follow – breakfast, work, lunch, more work, dinner and then the brief few hours of time they were granted alone together, as long as one of them wasn't on call for the department. A dry snore ripped through the room and Harry smiled into the back of Ron's neck, tightening his arm to feel the rise and fall of the redhead's chest as he slept.  
  
It had taken too much effort to get them there, lying comfortably in one of the many bedrooms of Grimmauld House. There had been too much denial, too much stress, one breakdown too many, too many furious reactions. But nobody else was there with them as they lay there, nobody else would know the sense of calm that Ron brought to Harry's soul. Nobody had been there the night before, either, when they'd made love, as sentimental as Ron thought that phrase. Harry didn't think there was another way to describe what they'd done – slowly, intimately, rhythmically: completely in sync with one another. He shivered at the memory of it.  
  
He jumped as the alarm spell suddenly blared out across the quiet room, and, as they were charmed to, the curtains ripped open at the sound. Bright light flooded his bedroom and Harry winced. Ron let out a pained moan and immediately rolled over, stuffing his face in the pillow and hiding his eyes from the morning.  
  
“Turn it off,” Ron instructed through muffled words.  
“Finite incantatem.” Harry's words came out hoarse.  
“I hate that fucking thing.” Ron briefly held his head up to speak. “I'm going to buy an actual alarm clock.”  
“Yeah, because those have done brilliantly at waking you up for the fifteen years that I've known you.”  
“Sod off.” The rebuke was affectionate in tone, despite the content.  
  
Harry gave a snort and pushed himself to sit up. The room was cold, but then it was November, and he hadn't quite perfected the heating spell needed to keep the old London town house in a decent climate for the, so far, colder than usual autumn that the country was experiencing.  
  
“Cold,” Ron whinged. “Fix it.”  
“When'd your last slave die off?” Harry playfully prodded Ron's shoulder with his finger.  
“Not dead yet. Is it really time to get up?” Ron turned his face so that Harry could see it, and blue eyes looked mournfully up at him.  
“Yup.”  
“Bollocks.”  
“Can't say I disagree. The thought of work isn't exactly tempting.”  
“Not with dickshit in charge all day, it isn't.”  
  
Finally, Ron yawned and rolled over before sitting up. His movements were excessively slow and he shuddered as the duvet fell off his body with the motion. Harry watched his nipples harden. It took a lot of willpower not to lean over and take one between his lips.  
“And then there's tonight.” Ron made a face. “Don't know why you agreed to it.”  
“I don't know why I did either,” Harry agreed, suddenly remembering what Ron was talking about.  
  
He had invited Percy and his wife over to offer an olive branch. It wasn't that Audrey needed one at all, but Percy did.  
  
“We shouldn't have to constantly apologise for being together,” Ron muttered, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “It's been a year. I don't see why we should be still trying to please him if he can't accept us for what we are, Harry.”  
“He's your brother.”  
“And my sister still wants to kill me for being with you. Some people, Harry, you just can't sweet talk into liking you again.”  
  
The bitterness in Ron's tone was an early warning sign and Harry recognised it immediately. It had taken him long enough to convince Ron that their relationship was a sane and beautiful idea; it was taking them even longer to convince some members of Ron's family.  
  
Harry smoothed one hand over the duvet, considering what he often did – that, really, Ron's family were his family, too. They had taken him in when he had nobody but the Dursleys, and offered him the chance to make happy memories in the school holidays which he would otherwise have been without. They had offered him friendship in abundance. He had seemingly repaid them by tearing their already lessened numbers apart by falling in love with his best friend.  
  
While he had been thinking, Ron had shrugged into an old dressing gown which he had belted, and put some slippers on.  
  
“Old man,” Harry teased, and smirked.  
“It's cold,” Ron said defensively. “Do you want me to make you breakfast or not?”  
“It's my turn.”  
“Doesn't matter.” Ron leant over the bed and kissed Harry on the lips.  
  
Harry deepened it, leaving Ron awkwardly balanced.  
  
“This won't get breakfast made, you twat,” Ron mumbled against his mouth, and pulled away, but he was smiling.  
  
“I was thinking,” Harry started, also climbing out of the bed.  
“That must've hurt,” Ron opened the bedroom door.  
“Shut up, knob. Anyway, I was thinking... maybe we could invite some other people over so it won't be so awkward?”  
“You want me to stand and slave over food for more people?” Ron did not look impressed.  
“Just a few...”  
“Who?”  
“Um, well...”  
“Oh, for Merlin's sake, you better not say Snape.”  
“Come on, Ron, we've not seen him for weeks.”  
“And that's the way I like it!”  
  
Harry yanked a hooded top over his head and reached for his glasses. Ron came into sharp focus as they settled on the bridge of his nose and Harry saw manic hair and pale skin. He also saw folded arms and a grimace.  
  
“Do you want to sit around the dining table with your brother making faces every time we look at one another, Ron?”  
“No, that's why I don't generally invite him for dinner. Or anyone else who doesn't like the fact we're together, for that matter.”  
“Owl him then, call it off.”  
“I can't do that.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because he'll tell mum and then she'll kick off. You know what it's like. And we really don't need her on our bloody backs.”  
  
The argument kept up all the way to the kitchen, through the making of breakfast and halfway through eating it, when Harry finally found he had had enough.  
  
“Fine, if you don't want to cancel it, we'll do the dinner with just Percy and Audrey and if you bloody moan about how bad it is, don't blame me when I tried to make it a bit better by relieving the pressure on you.”  
  
He viciously buttered a slice of toast and chomped a bite out of it. He pulled their copy of the Prophet towards him and stared at it. Ron stared moodily at his plate before chucking down a toast crust and getting up from the table.  
  
“I'm going for a shower,” he announced, and left the kitchen.  
“Oh, I'll just bloody clear all this up then, shall I?” Harry hollered after him.  
  
***  
  
Shifting uncomfortably through the awkward silence, Harry had to concede that Ron had been right. The dinner was a terrible idea. Percy almost looked green sitting opposite them, forced with the reality of their relationship, even though they had not shared one iota of affection since the redhead and his wife had arrived. Audrey looked every bit as unhappy as Harry felt, and he suddenly experienced a pang of regret for putting both her, and Ron, through the evening, all in the name of amends.  
  
“So, Ron...” Audrey spoke with the air of someone preparing to commence battle. “How's work? Still enjoying it?”  
“It's good.” Ron paused in cutting his chicken to look at her. “As good as working in the Ministry can get, anyway.”  
“You're lucky to have a job,” Percy cut in. “There are a lot of people at the moment who don't.”  
“Well, if the last administration hadn't wasted so much money supporting Voldemort, then they wouldn't be forced into making people redundant left, right and centre, would they?” Ron shot back, and resumed attacking his chicken. Harry didn't think he was imagining the extra violence with which Ron sliced.  
“It's very sad,” Audrey bravely went on. “I spoke to an old friend of mine from school and her husband has been let go. He's been working there ever since he left Hogwarts and was so good at his job.”  
“There just isn't the money,” Harry put in. “Our department will be next, we think. They'll make up some rubbish about there are too many of us and then let a job-lot go and then when the crime starts cranking up they'll blame the department for not doing their jobs properly.”  
  
There were hums of agreement from Ron and Audrey, but Percy gave him a filthy look.  
  
“It's not likely that any such redundancies will affect you, though, is it Harry? From what I hear, you're allowed to do whatever you like.”  
“That's bollocks,” Ron said flatly, and Harry couldn't help the blush which sprang to his cheeks.  
  
Of course, after the war, there had been favours which had been granted without him even having to ask. He was allowed extra leave if he wanted to take it. He had a nice little partition and had the run of the Ministry buildings as and when he wished to have it. There were perks, and he couldn't deny them.  
  
“If my role isn't required, then they would probably move me somewhere else,” Harry said gently. “And I'd be very grateful for that, and lucky.”  
“But you've probably got enough in the bank so that you don't even need to work.”  
There was a loud thud as, Harry suspected, Audrey kicked her arrogant husband under the dining table. Ron had stopped eating and was staring daggers across the plates at his brother. Harry swallowed and reached for his wine. It tasted like vinegar and had been bought as a gift by Percy for the dinner.  
  
The moment eventually passed and they all returned to their meals, much to Harry's relief. Audrey caught his eye with an expression of apology, and Harry shook his head.  
  
“So how about you?” Harry asked, knowing that one way to cheer Percy up was to get him talking about himself. “Are you still enjoying your new job?”  
  
After the war, Percy had left the Ministry for a brief period until the new government had ironed out the problems which had convinced him to break away from his family for several years. Harry knew that Percy regretted each and every one, and had spent those first months dearly trying to make up for his absence. But it was too late for Fred. Ron had tried, Harry knew, to get on with his brother. They had been so much more amenable to one another for a long time, and then when the news of his and Ron's relationship had broken, it was almost as if the war had never happened, and Percy still regarded Ron as his irresponsible little brother, who did not know what was good for him.  
  
Ginny sat squarely in the middle of those accusations. Percy had clearly set his mind to Harry marrying Ginny and welcoming him as a brother-in-law on those terms – not the terms of Harry becoming Ron's gay lover. Was it loyalty to Ginny, Harry wondered, which made Percy so hostile to them, or was it a deep-seated dislike of what they were? Homosexuality, he had learned, was accepted in Wizarding culture but there was still stigma and ignorance, just as in the Muggle world.  
  
How he had come to realise his own sexuality had, in part, a lot to do with Ginny herself. There was a lack of attraction after the war, which they had put down to stress and depression. But it didn't change, and Harry in desperation had sought elsewhere for what he craved – sexual contact and affection. It was only when nothing worked did he notice that he felt much more soothed in the presence of a man. It had been during a hug with another man that he had felt his body responding, that he felt his soul warm and his blood heat in the way that it had heated at school during brief kisses with girls. It had scared him senseless. It had scared him even more when the most electrifying of all presences turned out to be Ron's.  
  
Only when Ron jabbed him in the ribs did Harry realise that Percy had been talking and he hadn't heard a word.  
  
“And it keeps you busy.” Audrey smoothed over the moment like she seemed to smooth over so many others, and Harry shot her a grateful smile.  
  
They made successful small talk until all the plates were empty. Harry looked at Ron and saw the fatigue in his eyes, as he sat with his chin resting on locked knuckles.  
  
“The food was lovely.” Audrey pushed back her chair. “We're sorry to eat and run, but I'm really anxious to get Molly back from the sitter. She was unwell today...”  
  
Harry jumped to his feet, grateful that they were leaving. He guessed that Molly probably hadn't been ill at all, and that Audrey could just see the toll that the evening had taken on Ron. For some reason, she understood where her husband could not. She accepted their relationship without question and supported them.  
  
“Thank you for coming,” Harry said, heading for the hallway to retrieve their coats. “It's been lovely.” He hoped he sounded convincing as he said it.  
“Oh, absolutely.” She smiled at him and raised her eyebrows with sarcasm, knowing that Percy could not see her.  
  
Harry fought back his laugh and led her down to the front door, where he lifted her coat from the peg on the wall.  
  
“I'm so sorry,” he said quietly, looking over her shoulder to see how far off Percy was.  
“Don't be, it's not your fault he's like this. Tell Ron I'm sorry.”  
“The thing is, it's not your apologies he needs, Aud. He's going to be a right handful tonight-”  
  
Harry cut off at the sound of abrupt words being crossed back in the dining room, and both of them fell quiet, straining to hear what was being said.  
  
Percy stomped into view, the tips of his ears reddened and his face angry. He wrenched his coat from the hook and rudely barged past Harry to reach the door. It slammed into the wall as he pulled it open and stormed out into the night.  
  
“Wonderful.” Audrey sighed and closed the last button on her coat. She kissed Harry on the cheek as a goodbye. “Good luck with Ron.”  
“Good luck with him,” Harry nodded after Percy.  
  
With one last fleeting smile she was gone, leaving Harry to close the door behind her. He lingered in the hallway for a few minutes, trying to put off the moment when he would have to return to Ron and no doubt have to listen to various swear words and remarks about Percy that he had heard a hundred and one times before.  
  
Eventually he could put it off no longer without seeming obvious, and with heavy feet he walked back to the dining room. When he looked in, he saw Ron sitting at the table with his head in his hands, completely still.  
  
“Hey,” Harry tried, sitting back down. “You all right?”  
“Do I look all right?” Ron sighed.  
“Nope.”  
“There you go then.”  
“What was said?”  
“Same old same old. I've disappointed Mum. I've hurt Ginny badly. I've let the family down.”  
“You're not the first bent Weasley,” Harry pointed out.  
“I've let them down by stealing you from Ginny.”  
“There wasn't any stealing.”  
“Tell _them_ that.”  
“I have.”  
“Then why do we keep on flogging the same old hippogriff, Harry? He's never going to accept it. He doesn't like the fact that we're poofs and he certainly doesn't like the fact that we're poofs together. So can we just stop inviting him round for dinner now so I don't have to end up feeling like the biggest shit in the world?”  
  
Ron leapt up and began piling the plates in a stack, ready to take back to the kitchen.  
  
“Leave it, I'll do that,” Harry instructed. He got up and stood behind Ron, locking his arms around his waist. “You cooked it, I'll tidy up.”  
  
Ron ignored him and continued stacking things up.  
  
“Don't make me immobilise you,” he growled playfully, seizing Ron's wrists and holding them tight. “Just stop, Ron.”  
  
There was a clatter as Ron dropped the fork he was holding. Harry rested his chin on a bony shoulder and peered at his boyfriend's face. It was surly and unhappy.  
  
“Okay, no more dinners,” he conceded, pressing a kiss to Ron's cheek. “I won't do that to you again.”  
“Thank you.” Ron let out a breath of relief and leant back against Harry's body.  
“I love you,” Harry whispered in his ear.  
“I love you too,” Ron replied. “I just wish loving you didn't make things so fucking difficult.”  
“Don't feel you've got to stay.” Harry couldn't help the bitterness in his tone.  
“I'll never leave you Harry.”  
  
Ron's words were soft and full of pain. Harry pulled him closer and kissed his cheek again.  
  
“Would it be easier if I just stepped back, do you think?” Ron mused. “If I just said, 'okay, if you feel that way, then I'm not going to force myself on you?'”  
“I don't think any of them want that, Ron. And I think Charlie would bloody hurt you if you tried it. You know how much he loves being able to spend time with you these days. And George? Think about how George would react if you were to back off... you're his rock, Ron. You know that. They love you.”  
“Even if Percy and Ginny don't.”  
“Oh who knows what they're bloody thinking?”  
“Mum and Dad... they hate what this has done to the family.”  
“Your Dad told me that he was happy that you were happy,” Harry whispered. “And really, I think your Mum is too... she's just finding it more difficult to outwardly express that.”  
“She's never forgiven me for not marrying 'Mione.”  
“Neither has Lavender Brown, she thinks she missed her chance well and truly there.”  
  
Ron finally laughed and ducked out of Harry's hold. He set the dirty plates to hover before letting them zoom away to the kitchen. He picked up his wine and took a deep swig, polishing off the burgundy coloured liquid.  
  
“That tastes like goblin piss,” he declared, wiping his mouth. “Which I bet the bugger planned.”  
  
Harry laughed and set the place mats to self-clean and then zoom into the side cupboard where they lived. “I had to fight not to choke on the first mouthful.”  
“That was probably his aim... kill off the Boy Who Lived with vile wine.”  
“I bet Audrey's getting a right earful now,” Harry said. “For being so nice.”  
“She's far too nice for a prat like him.” Ron made a face. “He must have a big dick, she can't love him for his personality and he hasn't got much money.”  
  
“I love you for your big dick,” Harry assured him. “Though your personality's not bad and you've got a shit load of money.”  
“It's average at best.” Ron gave him a playful scowl and Harry laughed. “Come on. Let's get all this sorted and then maybe you can properly measure my dick so we've got an official length.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Two (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, Homophobia, mention of past mental illness, angst  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~5,400  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes >> Harry wants to know why.

**Chapter Two**  
  
  
“Heard you had dinner with Percy the other night,” George said airily, as he wiped down the till counter with a rag.  
“Oh yeah, laugh a minute, that was,” Ron answered, just as airily, as he straightened a display of Wonder Witch products.  
“Has he tried to spell you straight yet?” George grinned.  
“Give it time,” Ron advised. “Any day now I'll wake up to find him over my bed dousing me in purging potion to chase the gay from my body.”  
  
George laughed and drifted to the door of the shop, where he turned the sign from closed to open. Ron looked past him out into the Alley, where the cobbles were quiet on account of the relatively early hour.  
  
“How are things with you and Harry?” George asked.  
  
Ron hated that he thought himself thinking about it before he answered. He would have loved to have answered that everything was fine and that they were so happy they would burst. He was happy with Harry and loved him more than he'd ever thought it was possible to love someone. In truth Ron had loved Harry like that from the first few months of their friendship, but it had taken him a long time to come to terms with the fact. Harry had kissed him on New Year's Eve one year, and Ron had still been fighting his urges in the April of the next. His mind had battled for days and he had gone round and round in circles, one minute going to find Harry and tell him that he returned the feelings and the next adamantly denying that he had any feelings for Harry whatsoever. In the end, by falling apart, Ron found that he couldn't ignore the truth any more. He loved Harry, always had loved him, and probably always would.  
  
“It's difficult at the minute,” he said finally. “What with... Percy and Gin... and Mum being so weird. I can't stop it affecting the way I feel and act around him. And I know that's not fair, before you say it.”  
“It can't be easy...” George said softly. “I don't envy you it, that's for sure.”  
“Thanks.” Ron gave a mirthless laugh.  
“No, I mean it. It must be horrible... to be with someone that you really care for and not have the support of all of your family in it. Knowing that it's just who you love, not because you're gay.”  
“For Percy, I think it's that I'm gay just a little bit.” Ron rolled his eyes.  
“Well, he's never been exactly normal, I wouldn't worry about it. Who cares what old fart-arse thinks, eh?” George winked at him. “I'm sorry Ron... that it's not easier. Merlin knows you deserve easy, after everything...”  
  
Ron shook his head and moved on to the next set of shelves. He didn't want pity, and he most certainly didn't want the brother who had lived through the death of a twin telling him how hard his life must be, when it paled in comparison to George's own suffering. The mourning had taken its toll on his brother, who was thin and continually pale. The spark was dead in his eyes, much like Ron remembered it being dead in Fred's the second he was killed.  
  
“We'll get by,” he said finally, stepping back and looking at his work. “There. All ready for the general public to come and mess it up with their grubby little mitts.”  
  
George snorted. “Time for a cup of tea before you go to work?”  
“Not got time.” Ron made a face. “My day on call... stupid fuckers of the Wizarding World, here I come.”  
  
***  
Ron nearly screamed when his office door opened only seconds after he had finally managed to plant his bum on his seat for the first time that day. He'd hit the ground running on arrival, heading straight out to a malfunctioning diversion spell in the middle of Manchester. Ever since it had been one thing after the other, and it was four in the afternoon and he'd not had any lunch.  
  
“Only me.”  
“Dad? What're you doing here?” Ron leant his head back and closed his eyes.  
“Oh, just decided to pop in and see how my little boy's doing.” There was a smile that Ron missed as his father sat down in front of his desk.  
“He's fed up and tired and bloody starving.”  
“Bad day?”  
“Bad year.” Ron laughed under his breath. “How're you?”  
“Well. In fact, very well. I'm just starting two weeks of leave.”  
“I hate you,” Ron said automatically, and finally re-opened his eyes again.  
  
The smile on his dad's face was easy and warm. Ron recognised the twinkle in his eyes – it was the one that sometimes sparkled in his own.  
  
“Get on and eat your lunch, don't mind me.”  
“It's nearly dinnertime anyway... but the way my luck's going I'll be here til eight...” He ripped open the sandwich he'd asked the canteen to reserve for him.  
“Long day... you need to be careful you don't over work yourself.”  
“If this place had their way I'd be still at this desk long after I'm dead.”  
“The whole Ministry seems to have that ethic at the moment, you're not far wrong.”  
  
They fell into companionable silence and Ron munched quickly through his sandwich, stomach rumbling with each further mouthful. He was soon finished and threw his rubbish in the bin.  
  
“So why are you really here?” he asked, with a grin.  
“Do I need an ulterior motive to come and see my baby boy?”  
“At work you do.”  
“Foiled again. Okay... your mother asked me to drop in...”  
“Oh yeah?” Ron swigged a mouthful of pumpkin juice and waited.  
“She heard what happened with Percy at dinner the other night.”  
“He's got a gob like the Blackwall Tunnel.”  
“He always has had. I'm sorry that he was so rude to you.”  
“He always is.”  
“It's just hard for him to understand...”  
“Like it's hard for mum to understand.”  
“Your mother just wants you to be happy, and if you're happy with Harry...”  
“She's got a problem, because me being happy with Harry means that Ginny's unhappy because she's not with Harry. Bloody Harry's the common denominator here.”  
“He is. And if I wasn't sure that you didn't love him with all your being I would be as confused as your mother. But I see it in you, Ron. I can tell how you feel about him.”  
  
Ron found himself blushing and looked down at his knees.  
  
“It's nothing to be ashamed of.”  
“The way Percy's carrying on you'd think it was illegal.”  
“Well, Percy is set in his ways, much like your mother is. They're so similar it scares me.”  
“I just wish that if they didn't have anything nice to say, they'd not say anything.”  
“What exactly did Percy say to you at the end of the night? He refused to tell us, which made us guess that it wasn't polite.”  
“He said he never thought I'd turn out to be a shirt-lifter...”  
“Anything else?”  
“That I'm disgusting.”  
  
There was a loud sigh. “Ron, I'm so sorry.”  
“Does he tell Charlie he's disgusting?” Ron hated the sudden tremble of his jaw. He'd kept most of the hurt internalised thus far, and he didn't want to lose it in the middle of the Ministry.  
“I don't know what on earth is going through his mind.”  
“Well, Harry's promised no more dinners, at any rate. That made me feel a bit better.”  
  
His dad opened his mouth to say something more when Ron's office door flew open and a harassed looking Junior Auror stood outside. “Sir, there's been a huge disturbance down near St Paul's and Kingsley has ordered all able hands to the deck.”  
“Casualties?” Ron asked, jumping up. “Dad...”  
“I'll see myself out. Look after yourself.”  
“No casualties known as yet, Sir, but it's possible.”  
  
***  
“You stink of blood and guts,” Harry murmured distastefully, washing another scoop of hot water over Ron's belly.  
  
The 'disturbance' had turned out to be an idiotic sixteen-year-old attempting to Apparate for the first time, who had splinched themselves on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, managing to turn themselves entirely inside out. Ron's stomach turned remembering the sight of the boy's intestines slowly sliding down the cold steps and his eyeballs bouncing away with a Junior Auror chasing after them.  
  
“Stupid kid,” Ron breathed remorsefully.  
“And they just can't... put you back together again?” Harry winced.  
“You saw how injured I was on the Horcrux hunt... you can't just pack somebody's organs back inside their body when everything has fallen out... no... he's dead. It's so harsh.”  
  
Harry sighed in response and continued washing the bubbles over Ron's skin. It felt good to lean back against him, Ron thought, as he closed his eyes and concentrated on the sensation of the warmth coating him.  
  
“I was in meetings all day,” Harry murmured against his ear. “Otherwise I would have come to help.”  
“I handled it fine.”  
“Wasn't implying you didn't... but it's never nice to see that sort of shit on a long day.”  
  
Ron grunted in agreement. He had no idea what the time was. It had been late by the time he'd walked through the front door, his mind ringing with the screams of distressed Muggles. All of them had been Obliviated, but nobody had Obliviated him. Harry kissed his damp hair and kept his face tucked against Ron's head.  
  
“I saw Dad today,” Ron said, suddenly remembering. “Asking me about Percy.”  
“Oh?”  
“I told him.”  
“Told him what?”  
  
Ron sighed and sat up, causing the water to roar and create a wave in the magically enhanced bath. He hugged himself. “That Percy called me a disgusting shirt-lifter.”  
“Why didn't you tell me that was what he said? I would have tripped him up as he left.”  
“Because... I just... I love you, Harry, but our relationship seems to be causing so much shit and I can't cope with it. I didn't want you to know how low I'd gone to him.”  
“I don't care what he thinks of you. He's a twat, Ron. I know he's your brother but he's got no right to talk to you like that.”  
“I know he doesn't.”  
“He's got no right to hurt you, either.”  
  
The anger escalating within Harry was plain to hear and Ron hung his head, wishing he hadn't said anything.  
  
“Ron?”  
“Mm?”  
“You _do_ love me, don't you?”  
“Don't be a prick, Harry. If I didn't love you would I be putting myself and my family through this?”  
“I know, but you seem so down lately... and I don't want you to have another-”  
“Breakdown?” Ron finished drily. “I won't, Harry. It was too fucking exhausting to go through that again.”  
“Promise me?” Harry's arms suddenly locked tight around him and shook his body.  
“I promise,” Ron breathed, remembering something his grandmother used to say to him, about making promises that he could not keep. “I promise,” he repeated, shaking the thought aside.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“Harry, dear, you look thin!”  
  
Harry wondered whether Molly Weasley would ever stop telling him that he looked thin. He was no longer a teenager and he had plenty of money with which to stuff his face, which he often did. Ron was a surprisingly good cook, a skill he had clearly inherited from his mother, and Harry had a hearty meal nearly every day due to his boyfriend's talent.  
  
“I'm fine,” he responded with a grin.  
  
He accepted Molly's hug and then let her pass on to Ron, thinking her son could do with a hug a good deal more than he could. Shrugging out of his coat, he cast them a sneaky glance, wrapped together on the doorstep. Ron's eyes were closed but his face was tight and pained, as if his mother's embrace was a spiked cage he had been caught in. When Molly finally pulled back, she seized Ron's face between her palms and squeezed it.  
  
“And you. Too much work!” she declared, tapping him on the end of his long nose with her forefinger.  
  
Finally she let him be and moved back to the stove, where several pots were being stirred without supervision. Harry could smell the familiar scent of her chicken roasting away. His belly gave a rumble and he held his hand out to take Ron's coat out from him.  
  
“Such a gentleman,” Ron joked wryly, but passed it over all the same. “Thanks.”  
“You two go in the sitting room and make yourselves comfy. There's ale in the pantry if you want it.”  
“I can't mum, I'm on call tonight,” Ron explained.  
“Another night on call?”  
“I know. I can't help the rota though.”  
  
Her unimpressed silence chased them from the kitchen and into the cosy sitting room, where a fire was in full roar and some of the chairs were occupied by bodies.  
  
“Here's my favourite homosexual,” Charlie commented wryly, not bothering to get up but giving them a wink and a wave.  
“Odd, I always thought that would be yourself...” George rolled his eyes. “Good to see you Harry. Been a while...”  
  
It had been a while since Ron and Harry had braved the Weasley Sunday lunch. It was only on the promise that both Ginny and Percy were busy that they had finally agreed to attend. Ron had told Harry on no uncertain terms that should either of them turn up unannounced, he would be leaving.  
  
Harry fell down in one of the empty chairs and revelled in the familiar scent of The Burrow. It brought back happy memories of summers spent with Ron as teenagers. Ron sat down next to him and, in an odd public display of affection, picked up his hand and held it.  
  
“Awh, that's nice to see.” George's voice was full of warmth.  
“It is,” Charlie agreed. “Nobody should have to hide who they are, or what they want, or who they're with.”  
“What's that?” Molly asked, entering the room whilst wiping her hands on her apron.  
“Ron's holding Harry's hand in front of us. Isn't that nice?” George said calmly; Harry's heart began to thud against his chest.  
  
He glanced at Molly to assess her reaction. For a moment, her eyes fixated on their joined hands and he thought she might erupt, but the flash passed, and she merely looked away again.  
  
“Wish I had somebody's hand to hold,” Charlie put in, sounding morose. Harry knew his point: Ron was not the only gay Weasley boy, and his relationship was something to be cherished, not feared or reviled. “I get so lonely...”  
“Stop leaving your pants on the floor and some bloke might actually stick around past the first cup of coffee,” George advised.  
  
Ron surprised Harry then with a snort.  
  
“Really Charlie, you're as messy as a Krup pup,” Molly scolded. “I thought I'd taught you better than that.”  
“He'll be wading through his own pants till the day he dies, Mum...” Bill's declaration announced his arrival, and Fleur's, and the uneven thuds on the floor heralded the arrival of five-year-old Victoire.  
“There's my girl!” Charlie cried, bounding to his feet and snatching her up in the air.  
  
Harry watched as the girl was thrown this way and that, shrieking with delight all the while, and then finally came to a rest cuddled closed to her uncle's chest. Charlie pecked a kiss to her hair and sat back down.  
  
“You're so pretty,” Charlie told her, and the little girl beamed.  
“Course she is,” Bill said. “She's ours!”  
  
Looking to where they stood, the eldest Weasley sibling had his arm around his pregnant wife, who was rolling her eyes in despair at his pride.  
  
“You look well,” Harry told her. She really did glow during pregnancy. He thought about how once, seeing her so resplendent would have floored Ron to incoherency.  
“I feel well,” she replied, a huge smile lighting her face. “'Zis will be baby of joy, I am sure of eet.”  
“One of you move your fat arses and let her sit down,” Bill instructed, and George relocated to the floor.  
“Eet is so good to see you 'ere,” Fleur spoke to both Harry and Ron as a pair. “So nice.”  
“Nice of you to grace us with your presence,” Bill agreed, perching on the edge of the chair.  
“Well, normally it's a bit hard to get in the room when your gigantic ego fills it.” Ron grinned.  
“No respect for your elders,” Bill muttered.  
“Hard to respect a man who still wears pyjamas with little broomsticks on.” Charlie toasted Bill with his ale bottle and drank it, somehow still wearing a smirk.  
  
***  
  
Hiding his smile, Harry sat up and wiped his mouth. Ron was flat out on his back, panting, a fine sheen of sweat coating his skin. They'd only gone for a lie down together on getting back from the Burrow, but that had turned into a snogging session, and then hands had wandered.  
  
“Sweet Sunday afternoon bliss,” Ron breathed happily.  
“You're welcome.”  
“I know I am.”  
  
Harry laughed and crawled back up the bed to kiss Ron on the mouth, back where they had originally started.  
  
“Wish we could do more,” Ron said woefully. “But I have to be gone in like...” he looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Wow, ten minutes ago. You've got some serious jaw skills there my friend.”  
“Practice.” Harry gave him a crooked smile and put his glasses back on.  
“Don't,” Ron begged.  
“Don't what?”  
“Look so fuckable.” Ron groaned and sat up. “That makes it fifty times harder to get up and leave you for the entire night when I could be balls-deep in you within five minutes if I got my fingers in that position which makes you squeal.”  
  
Harry said nothing as Ron got up and began putting his clothes back on. He looked at the furry curve of the wizard's buttocks and felt a pang deep in his belly that there would be nothing further that night between them.  
  
“Can't you owl in sick?” he suggested, bringing his legs up to his chest and hooking his arms around them. “I don't want to be alone tonight.”  
  
Ron turned to look at him, concern etched in his brow. “You all right?”  
“Yeah... I just feel a bit... not to be clingy, but like we never get to spend any time together any more when I'm not sponging you down after being covered in blood or stuffing our faces together in the Ministry canteen for lunch.”  
Ron paused, his Auror robes in hand. “I can owl in if you want me to, Harry.”  
“Only if you want to.”  
  
An awkward silence settled between them and Ron looked down at his feet.  
  
“What's happening?” Harry asked tentatively. “Everything feels so weird recently. You're so quiet, even after a really good afternoon at your mum's.”  
“I'm tired,” Ron said defensively. “You're tired. Work's hard. All this family shit on top. It's not all roses I guess.”  
“I'm aware of that,” Harry retorted, climbing off the bed. “I remember at the start, Ron. I was there too.”  
“Don't start on about that, please.” Ron dropped his robes and reached up to rub his hands over his face. “I know, I'm shit, it was shit, it was all my fucking fault. Just not tonight, Harry, please.”  
  
Harry moved to stand in front of him and grabbed his wrists. “It wasn't your fault. Being ill isn't anyone's fault... and as for trying to work out what you felt for me... that's not something you decide overnight.”  
  
He kissed one of Ron's hands and didn't release it, keeping it pressed to his mouth. Ron looked at him with sad eyes and Harry felt his belly squirm. He'd seen those eyes before.  
  
“I'm going to owl in sick for you,” he decided. “I'm going to send the department a message saying you're in bed with a fever and that you're unable to work for the next couple of days... coincidentally the same couple of days that I happen to be on leave, and we're going to spend it together, yeah? Maybe we can get away for a few days and clear our heads, talk through some shit?”  
“Go away?” Ron asked, his expression brightening. “That sounds great. Where?”  
“Any where you want.” Harry grinned, and kissed the hand he held again.  
  
The difference was so instant that Harry looked around at their bedroom when Ron turned away to put his robe back in the wardrobe. He had worked so hard to make Grimmauld Place habitable that it was virtually unrecognisable to how they had known it as teenagers. Everything was brighter. Thick carpets went from wall to wall and all of the horrible old adornments, like the House Elves' heads, were gone. The only room he had left untouched was Sirius' bedroom, leaving it as a memorial to the godfather he had barely known. The thought that the place might still be depressing Ron, even with the improvements, caused a bitter taste to form in the back of his throat.  
  
“Harry?”  
“Huh?” he blurted.  
“I asked if we could take your car?” Ron repeated, looking hopeful. “Rather than apparating.”  
“That means we lose time wherever we're going,” Harry pointed out. “But yeah... she could do with a good run, I suppose. We'll need to convert some Muggle money, for the petrol.”  
“You can use your account with the little plastic card, can't you?”  
  
Harry laughed at the thought of Ron reminding him that he could use Muggle technology. He nodded and sat down on the end of the bed. “Sounds good. But you're not driving.”  
“Why not?” Ron whinged.  
“Because one hundred miles per hour is not a safe speed.”  
“Ah but it feels good,” Ron pointed out with a naughty grin.  
“You're going to kill yourself one of these days, not to mention get caught by the bloody police...”  
“I'm an Auror,” Ron reminded him, pushing him down onto his back and kissing him. “I can make them forget. What does it matter?”  
  
They kissed again and Ron set his fingers to removing Harry's t-shirt.  
  
“I love you,” Ron whispered, and Harry closed his eyes, brief unhappiness forgotten.  
  
***  
  
“I think we should have remembered it's November,” Harry muttered through chattering teeth.  
  
He was leaning over the beach railing in a little seaside town on the southern coast, with the wind stinging his face. Ron was next to him, his nose red from cold but the grin on his face was mesmerising.  
  
“We should remember to this do this more often,” Ron corrected, picking up Harry's hand as it dangled over the railing.  
“Ron,” Harry whispered, glancing around them.  
“Fuck it.” Ron shrugged. “The place is deserted and I'm sure they've seen worse than two poofs holding hands looking at the sea.”  
“Yeah, that playground looks dead dodgy,” Harry agreed, with a head jerk in its direction.  
  
Ron's laughed floated into the wind and Harry began to chuckle. The ride down had been perfect, the motorways mostly empty, and they'd only got lost once. There hadn't been a cross word between them.  
  
“This is the best idea I've had in ages,” Harry decided aloud. “I'm so clever.”  
“Hermione would probably beg to differ.”  
“I wonder how she's doing, she hasn't written for a while.”  
“The owls do take a while to get from Australia, Harry.”  
“I don't know why she had to stay out there with her parents.” Harry made a face at the waves crashing against the beach. “I miss her.”  
“I miss her too,” Ron assured him. “But she feels that she owes them, after the war... after what she did to them. I don't think she's ever forgiven herself, even if they did immediately.”  
“She's stupid then!”  
“Like to see you say that to her face.” Ron laughed.  
  
Harry pulled away from the railing and began to walk. Ron went with him willingly, loping along beside him with effortless grace. Harry enjoyed the way that their shoulders kept nudging together.  
  
“So what do you want to do this afternoon?” he asked, lifting his voice over the wind, which seemed to be picking up with every further minute.  
“Be where you are,” Ron answered simply.  
  
***  
  
“That was amazing.” Harry watched as Ron sucked each one of his fingers clean. “I mean... Godric, why can't everywhere make food like this?”  
  
They were sat in the pub which served the bed and breakfast they had booked. The evening was wearing on and people were leaving. Harry yawned and scratched his head. “Bed?”  
“Absolutely. In a minute. After another pint.” Ron got up to get the drinks in and Harry watched him go, appreciating the slight backside and long legs.  
  
The change in Ron was undeniable. He was loose limbed, his expression light. There were no lines on his forehead. He was laughing more than Harry had seen him laugh in a long time. He looked more beautiful than Harry could remember.  
  
He didn't want to think of the changes which would take place when they had to return to London, home, work and family. He couldn't make up his mind which was stifling Ron the most, but at least their holiday had convinced him that their relationship wasn't anything to do with it. He'd lost count of the times they'd kissed, and they'd gone through nearly an entire bottle of lube through one act or another. They'd thoroughly spent themselves, got up, eaten and done the whole thing again and Ron had seemingly loved the whole thing.  
  
But London was looming like an ugly cloud over them both and Harry knew they should talk about it. He knew he should bring it up and then hopefully they could move on or find a way to rectify the situation. If it was the house, he was sure he could bring himself to sell the old place so that they could move somewhere else. Really, it was only loyalty to Sirius which had made him keep it in the first place. That, and it was easy. He'd done a lot of work but barely any of it was by his own hand. Having money had meant that he could pay people to do it for him, although he had taken particular pleasure in ripping Sirius' mother from the wall himself.  
  
“Seriously, you must know those fairies pretty well... you're with them more often than me these days,” Ron joked, sliding a full pint across the table for Harry.  
“Just thinking.”  
“Do tell.”  
“About you.”  
  
Ron froze and then took a nervous gulp from his pint.  
  
“I'm worried about you...” Harry said quietly, picking up a beer mat to play with. “You've been so happy on this holiday that I'm sure something about home is making you miserable. Is it the house? Is it work?”  
“If I said it's both?” Ron made a face.  
“Then we could work with that,” Harry promised, shifting in his seat. He sat up straight. “We can move. You could take extended leave from work and spend some time relaxing.”  
“I'd be bored out of my mind.”  
“Liar, you'd fucking love it.”  
  
Ron gave him a wicked grin and drank some more beer.  
  
“I just want you to be happy. I know it's not easy... with your family being like they are, but I really think we're making progress there, you know?”  
“Sunday lunch was good,” Ron agreed.  
“Would you want to move?”  
“I don't think it's the house... I just think it's all the things I've been through in it. We've been through. And...”  
“And what?” Harry frowned, looking at the way that Ron seemed to shrink where he sat.  
“Don't hate me when I say this?” Ron implored.  
“When have any of the periods that I've hated you ever lasted?”  
  
Ron chewed on his lip for a while as he seemed to think through his words. “You were there with Ginny.”  
  
Harry choked on the mouthful of beer he had just taken. It splattered down his top.  
  
“What?” he said finally, wiping at his sopping clothes.  
“You were there with her... and you were probably with her in that bedroom. And I can't deny that it makes me feel... uncomfortable, especially with things as they were with my family.”  
“I didn't even... I had no idea that that... Ron...”  
“It's not a big deal.” Ron took a considerable drink of beer. “But it's been getting to me lately and I thought I should say... didn't know how... and then you asked.”  
“I did,” Harry said fairly.  
“But you don't like the answer.”  
“No, it's not that, it's that I honestly hadn't thought about it. It was so long ago that I was with Ginny like... like _that_. I never think about it. I had no idea that you would be.”  
“I try not to. But I just... sometimes I can't help it because she must hate it, that you've moved me into the same house that should have been hers.”  
“It never would have been.”  
“But she doesn't see it that way.”  
  
Harry swallowed and found his throat dry. “I don't know what to say. I'm sorry?”  
“It's not your fault you were with someone before me. I'm not saying that, Harry... I'm just saying that I find it really difficult to be in the same bed, sometimes, that you had sex with my sister in.”  
  
Ron didn't seem to realise just how quiet the pub had become and his voice rang through the room. Several heads turned their way, but Ron didn't notice – he was too busy looking at Harry with such intensity that Harry blushed under his gaze, and the room's.  
  
“Maybe we should go back to the room?” he suggested, fidgeting in his seat.  
“If you want.” Ron drained his glass. “Sorry, I've ruined the night.”  
“I asked,” Harry held up a hand to stop him from getting up. “So do you want to move somewhere else? Between us we could get a new house easily. I don't think I could ever bring myself to sell Grimmauld House though... I don't know...”  
“Buy somewhere together?” Ron's eyebrows lifted. “Completely new? Without a history?”  
“If that's what you want?”  
“That'd be great!” Ron beamed. “But really... you love that house because it was Sirius'... I don't want to make you leave it, Harry. Has to be your decision too.”  
“I know that. And it is.”  
“Because you want me to be happy.”  
“No, because I want our relationship to be healthy and happy and... truth be told... I hate the pair of us rattling around that fucking great house.”  
“Want to just move Charlie and George in as well?”  
“That doesn't solve how you feel about it.”  
  
Ron shook his head and twisted his empty pint glass around on the wood. “Guess not.”  
“No, I think the best idea is for us to buy somewhere new... Harry Potter and Ron Weasley written on the deeds. Me and you and nobody else. Are you sure?”  
“I'm sure.” Ron grinned at him so purely that something shivered inside Harry. It might have been his soul.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Three (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, Homophobia, mention of past mental illness, angst, infantile death.  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~6,406  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes >> How far is he willing to go?

** Chapter Three **

  
  
“You sure about this?” Ron muttered out of the side of his mouth. They were approaching the Burrow on foot having Apparated at the boundary line. His stomach felt uneasy at what they were about to do.  
  
His parents were as good at receiving charity as he was. But once Harry had got the idea in his head it was clear there was no talking him out of it. Ron had just allowed himself to be swept along with it. They'd been lucky with the house search. Harry had hated the first. Ron had hated the second. The third had been mutually loathed. The fourth was too small. The fifth was too big. The sixth, however, was absolutely perfect. It was based in a leafy suburb of London, far enough to not feel like London but close enough to still find a shop open at one in the morning when someone had a craving for a kebab. There was a good sized garden and a good amount of natural light. It wasn't in bad nick, really, and they could easily spruce it up with magic once they got the keys. They were waiting for the paperwork to go through. Ron couldn't deny the little tingles of excitement which kept rocking through his belly.  
  
“What will you do if they say no?” Ron asked.  
  
Harry shrugged. “I dunno. Rent it out?”  
“Then you've got no way of making sure that Sirius' room stays as it is.”  
“We could just permanently lock the door?”  
“Nah, then that's like the creepy horror film where there's a door which just won't open and everyone gets scared of what's behind it.”  
“True.”  
“Though if you wanted to have some fun you could find a banshee and install her.”  
“I think that breaks the Statute of Secrecy and all of the anti-baiting laws.”  
  
Ron snorted and reached out to knock on the door into the kitchen. It swung open immediately and the smell of something delicious wafted out.  
  
“Boys! What are you doing here?” His mother's voice was full of surprise.  
“We want to talk to you about something,” Harry said. “But you look busy.”  
“No busier than I've been every day since Bill was born, dear,” she laughed, shooing them into the kitchen with her hand.  
  
Looking around, Ron saw the kitchen table covered in paper. Victoire sat scrawling on some of it with crayons, humming happily to herself. Perched in a high chair sat baby Molly and her little face lit up when she saw two new visitors, one of whom was tall and had red hair like her daddy.  
  
“How did you end up babysitting again?” Ron asked, rounding the table to tenderly touch baby Molly's soft hair.   
  
Just because her father was an idiot, it didn't mean that Ron loved his second niece any less. He bent and pressed a kiss to the top of her little baby-scented head.  
  
“Well... they never get any time by themselves. They're all out together, doing something or other. I can't remember what.”  
“Mum, they're always bloody out, you shouldn't-”  
“I _like_ looking after them. It makes me happy. Now, what did you want to discuss? Your father's in the shed. Should I give him a shout?”  
“Yeah, probably.” Harry sat down next to Victoire and picked up a crayon, joining her in her colouring quest.  
  
Ron sat down opposite them and watched with fascination as they began to work together on something which he thought might have been a chimaera. Or a table. It was hard to tell.  
  
Tea was made and biscuits were found as they waited, and finally, when his dad entered with filthy hands and a smudge on his nose, Ron was more anxious than ever. He wrapped his fingers around his mug of tea and held it close to his lips.  
  
“What's this all about then, eh?” Arthur said finally, sitting down where he could let baby Molly grab at his finger whenever she wanted. “Why the unannounced visit in the middle of a Saturday when you've got better things to be doing?”  
“Well... we've been sorting some stuff out,” Harry began, with a furtive look at Ron.  
“We've been a bit busy,” Ron offered. “We've decided to buy a house. Together.” He looked over at Victoire, who was ignoring them all and carrying on with her crayons.  
“But you already live together,” his dad frowned. “What's the sense in-”  
“Grimmauld Place is too big for just the two of us,” Harry cut in firmly. “And between us, we've decided that there's too much history there for us to live peacefully. So we're going to have a new beginning.”  
“How exciting.” His mother didn't hide her surprise well. “Have you started looking?”  
“Actually, we've found somewhere. We're hoping to have the keys by next weekend. It's sitting empty at the minute and there's no chain. It should be relatively simple.”  
“That's quick!”  
“We know, but it's perfect for what we want and it's available now. So what's the point of waiting?” Harry's smile made Ron glow inside.  
  
“What about Grimmauld Place?” his father asked intuitively. “Are you going to sell it?”  
“Well, actually... that's why we're here...” Harry shifted where he sat. “I don't want to sell it. I _can't_ sell it, actually. Turns out there's a clause in the house deeds which says that the house can never go beyond Black blood by means of sale. But I can gift it to other people.”  
“Then this is silly, why are you wasting your money on a new house when you have a perfectly good one already?”   
“Mum, Harry wants to know if you and Dad want to take Grimmauld Place.” Ron held his breath as he spoke. “It needs a woman's touch and, with Charlie and George back at home, he thought you might like it. It's got loads of room, enough for everyone to stay when they want to, a huge kitchen...”  
“We could never move.”  
  
“Well, we could.” His dad seemed somewhat interested in the offer, Ron thought. It was his mum's face that looked frighteningly emotional at the prospect.  
“We've had all of our children in this house... and lost one of them too. You've all grown up here. I don't want to leave.”  
“Molly, the boys are just asking. They're not going to force you to do anything.”  
“If you don't want it, it'll just sit empty. I'll make the same offer to Bill and Fleur, Charlie, George... I just want the house to be useful.”  
  
“Well, thank you, Harry, for the kind offer... but I think Molly has her sights on seeing her old age in right here.”   
  
Ron smiled into his hand at the way his dad could smooth over any awkward situation. He looked at the grain of the wood and waited for his mum to speak again.  
  
“I don't understand why you two can't live there like you have been.”  
“We're lost in there, Molly,” Harry said carefully. “Too much space. It's a bit... it can make you quite low, sometimes. And Ron... Ron wanted somewhere which belongs to the two of us, somewhere which is a joint investment and where we can make our own memories... like you made yours.”  
  
That did it. Ron accepted his mum's kisses on the cheek and the ruffles of his hair as she cooed over them. It was better than her usual quiet distaste of their relationship, he thought.  
  
“I think someone needs a nap,” his dad announced suddenly. They all looked at baby Molly who had nodded off amidst all the talk.  
“I'll take her up,” Ron said, jumping to his feet. He was eager to get out of the kitchen. “Spend some time with my niece without her father glaring daggers at me.”  
  
He gently freed her from the chair and took her weight in his arms, holding her close to his chest. She was warm and soft, so fragile that he was afraid he might break her. He only had experience of Victoire as a baby. Ginny had been one year after him and he had been too young to really appreciate her when he was still technically a baby himself. He bounced her slightly as he went up the stairs, careful to mind both of their heads on some of the low beams. He saw her eyelids flutter as they approached Percy's old bedroom.  
  
“There we go, baby girl,” he murmured, arranging her in the cot which had belonged in turn to each of the Weasley children over the years. He noticed some teeth marks on one of the side-bars and thought they might have been his. “I used to sleep in here too...” He gently caressed the side of her face and smiled. “So pretty. You can't possibly be from Percy's swimmers. He's got a face like a smacked arse half the time.”  
  
He was so tall and the cot so low that he was able to bend over and kiss the top of her head. As he bent, his wand, stuffed hastily in the pocket of his jeans, caught on the cot and clattered to the floor. Ron held his breath, hoping the sound wouldn't wake her up. His wand rolled out of sight and Molly slept on peacefully.  
  
“Hey.” Harry's whisper startled him.  
  
Warm hands took his waist and Ron turned, looking down into Harry's face. They kissed.  
  
“Well, that could have been worse,” Ron whispered.  
“She still wants to know why we can't live there any more. I didn't tell her, but I think she'd understand if it came from you.”  
“Oh yeah, from her son who stole her only daughter's one true love.”  
  
  
“Ron... she said just now, after you'd come up here, that she hopes we'll be really happy in the new house. I think she's starting to get over the whole thing. I think that it's going to get better. We'll invite them for dinner when we get things sorted and she'll see how deliriously happy we are and that'll be that. She'll be making wedding invitations.”  
“If we ever get married, we're running away and doing it by ourselves, y'understand?” Ron muttered.  
“Sounds perfect to me,” Harry conceded. “Molly asleep?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Then why don't me and you go home and celebrate this victory with a little afternoon siesta ourselves, eh?”  
“If by siesta you mean rampant bum sex...”  
“I do.” Harry nodded.  
“I'm in.”  
  
***  
  
With a pounding head, Ron stumbled into the bathroom attached to their bedroom and blindly fumbled for the toilet seat. With swimming vision he didn't think he had the ability to aim, so he sat down to urinate, holding his head in his hands. Harry had unearthed a bottle of Ogden's from somewhere within the depths of the kitchen and they had shared it between them, swigging straight from the dusty glass as they took turns on one another.  
  
Despite the hangover, Ron found himself smiling as he remembered. He and Harry hadn't had a night quite so debauched in a long time. There had been tongues in all manner of places and Ron recalled blushing a lot throughout the evening. He didn't know what time they'd finally fallen asleep, but from the tiredness in his bones and clanging in his head, he guessed it hadn't been that long ago.  
  
Finished, he stood up with a slight wobble and flushed the toilet. He washed his hands, not daring to look at his reflection in the mirror. Then, thinking of nothing more than falling asleep again, he staggered back to the bed and groaned when it took his weight. He thought he was going to need one hell of a fry up to make his belly feel better when he could see straight again.  
  
Hoping that perhaps Harry might be in a better state than he and make the breakfast, Ron rolled on his side and pulled the covers up over his body. He nuzzled contentedly into his pillow and let sleep pull at him completely.  
  
The next thing he knew, a loud screeching noise was blaring through the room and Harry was stirring next to him.  
  
“Whassat?” he mumbled, unable to get his tongue in gear.  
“Doorbell,” Harry grunted, throwing back the covers and letting the cold air in. Ron shivered.   
  
Blinking, he managed to bring Harry into focus and watched him struggle into the same jeans and hoodie he'd been wearing the day before, albeit with added creases from their night on the floor.  
  
“I'll get it,” Harry yawned. “Go back to sleep. You look like shit.”  
“Your fault,” Ron yawned back, and did just as Harry instructed.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Ron, you need to wake up,” Harry whispered urgently, shaking Ron's cold shoulder. “We have visitors.”  
“Don' wanna...” Ron mumbled, too playfully for the situation that was unfolding around him, even though he didn't know about it.  
“You have to get up,” Harry told him sharply, and yanked so that his body rolled over. “Now.”  
  
Ron's eyes finally widened enough for Harry to be sure that his expression was seen. When Ron saw how serious it was, he began to frown.  
  
“Whassamatter?” the redhead asked.  
“Something's happened, and you need to get up, get dressed, drink a sobering solution, and come down to the living room, as soon as you can.”  
“Is someone dead?” Ron asked fearfully, his eyes widening further with every word.  
“Yes,” Harry confirmed. “Someone's died. But you need to come downstairs so we can talk it through, okay?”  
  
Ron nodded, the colour gone from his face. Harry straightened up and stepped back from the bed, rubbing his hand over his mouth. He didn't know what to say. It was all he could do to stop himself from throwing up on the carpet.  
  
There were three Aurors from the squad in his living room, their work colleagues... wanting to talk to his boyfriend about a death. Each of them had worn the same solemn expression as they had told Harry nothing more than the essentials and asked him to rouse Ron immediately.  
  
His mind was racing as Ron got up and clambered back into the same clothes from the day before. He felt nauseous from all the alcohol they'd consumed and for the worry of why there were three Aurors sitting in his living room. Ron disappeared into the bathroom and Harry allowed himself a steadying, shaky breath whilst he was gone. When he came back he looked more alert.  
  
“C'mon,” Harry said, grabbing his hand and leading him from the room.   
“What's this all about?” Ron asked quietly, squeezing Harry's fingers.  
“They wouldn't tell me. They just asked me to get you.”  
  
In silence they proceeded down the many staircases in the house until they were on the ground floor. Harry led the way to the sitting room and pushed open the door. All three Aurors were still standing, still wearing the same grim expressions.  
  
“Right, what's all this about then?” Harry asked bluntly, as soon as Ron had stepped over the threshold.  
“We just want to talk to Ron.”  
“This early in the morning?” Ron asked warily. “What's happened? Harry said someone had died.”  
“Someone has died, Weasley,” one of the Aurors said. Harry recognised him as one of the more senior members of the team, who held no love for any of his team mates and mostly treated them with contempt. “Your niece, Molly Weasley.”  
“What?” Ron exclaimed, aghast. “But she was fine yesterday!”  
“So we hear,” the Auror went on. “You and Harry visited your parents yesterday afternoon, did you not?”  
“Yeah.” Ron frowned. “What's that got to do with it?”  
“And you were the one, if our sources are correct, that put little Molly down to sleep, weren't you?”  
“Yes,” Ron confirmed. “Everyone else was busy, so I took her upstairs and put her down for her nap... she was tired.”  
“Ron, did you notice anything unusual about Molly? Did she seem well?” asked another. His voice was kinder, Harry thought.  
  
“No, she was fine,” Ron insisted. “She was smiling and reacting. Harry saw her, he came upstairs to me just after I put her down.”  
“Was Molly Weasley moving, Harry, when you saw her?”  
“She'd fallen asleep,” Harry said aloud, speaking as he recalled the moment. “She was on her back, Ron hadn't yet put the blanket over her. She looked peaceful.”  
“But was she moving?”  
“She'd just fallen asleep,” Harry reiterated. “Where was she going to go?”  
“Was she breathing?” the blunt Auror asked impatiently. “Did you see her breathe after your partner placed her in the cot?”  
“Of course she was breathing,” Harry cried, getting frustrated.  
  
Their questions seemed too pointed. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.  
  
“What's this got to do with me?” Ron asked finally. “I put her down, she was breathing, she was fine. I kissed her on the forehead goodnight. Then Harry came up. End of story.”  
  
A swift look passed between the three Aurors and Harry held his breath, fearful of what was coming next.  
  
“Your niece was found dead when her parents arrived to collect her at half past six last night. The baby's father found something in the room he found alarming, and alerted the Auror department at approximately nineteen hundred hours last night. Do you have any idea what that item might have been, Mr Weasley?”  
  
Harry noted the switch to last name terms and went cold.  
  
“No idea,” Ron breathed. “I can't believe she's dead.”  
“Well, Mr Weasley... there will be some that find that extremely hard to believe, considering the item found in the room was your discarded wand.”  
“What? My wand's upstairs-”  
  
Harry watched as Ron froze, as something like recognition flickered in his eyes.  
  
“I dropped it,” the redhead breathed. “I bent down to kiss her on the forehead and it caught on the side of the cot... rolled away. I meant to get it but then Harry came into the bedroom and...”  
“And what, Mr Weasley?”  
“He kissed me,” Ron said, blushing a painful red. “And I forgot all about it.”  
  
“So what, his wand was found in the room,” Harry picked up the conversation when Ron fell silent. “Percy handed it in because he thought the death of his daughter was suspect?”  
“Spot on, Potter. However, when the wand was diagnosed as belonging to one Ronald Weasley, Percy suddenly seemed to think that his brother would have very good cause for killing his child.”  
“What?” Ron gasped. “Why on earth would I kill a baby?”  
“You tell us, Mr Weasley.”  
“Whoa, wait!” Harry put one hand up. “Is this a formal interrogation? Are you accusing him of killing Molly?”  
“I would never!” Ron cried. “I love her, she's my niece. Why would I kill her?”  
“That's what we need to find out, Mr Weasley. The last spell performed by your wand was an Immobilus, cast during the day yesterday. We aren't able to pinpoint a time any further than that.”  
“I froze a spider,” Ron explained immediately. “There was a spider in the bathroom and so it couldn't move I froze it to get it out of the window.”  
“An Immobilus spell, cast on an infant as young as Molly Weasley, would have caused death within two hours. A baby that young is not able to understand why they cannot move, Mr Weasley. Their heart rate would increase. They would panic, the external relief of screaming denied to them. That panic would turn inward and, as happened to your niece, she died of asphyxia when she got into such a state that she could not breathe.”  
  
Harry watched Ron's hand lift to his mouth and heard a retch. He watched his boyfriend swallow his nervous vomit back down into his stomach.  
  
“I didn't hurt her,” Ron whispered. “I wouldn't. She's my niece.”  
“We hear that things haven't been too friendly between you and your brother lately.”  
“Where'd you hear that, from him?” Harry asked bitterly.  
“Why has the relationship between you broken down?”  
“Because he doesn't approve of my sexuality, and my choice of partner.” Ron's voice seemed to have gained a significant tremor.  
  
Another look passed between the three men in the room and Harry stepped towards Ron, ready to pick up his hand.  
  
“Potter, step away. Ronald Bilius Weasley, I hereby arrest you on the suspicion of the murder of your niece, Molly Audrey Weasley, aged four months old.”  
“What?” Harry heard the word slip from his lips before he realised it was him that had spoken.   
  
Ron stood looking dumbstruck, gaping at the Aurors like they had just told him that he was dead himself. Harry looked between them all, wondering if what he was hearing was really happening, or whether he would wake up at any moment with Ron snoring his head off next to him.  
  
“We have been ordered to take you into custody. I suggest you find some footwear,” the Auror said, looking down at Ron's bare feet.  
“I'll come with you,” Harry said at once, reaching down to check his wand was in his pocket.  
“Visitors are not permitted.”  
“I'm not a visitor, I'm his partner.”  
“Strict orders, Potter. You stay here, Weasley comes with us to the Ministry for holding until a trial can be arranged.”  
“A trial?” Ron whispered, as if he had never heard of the word before.  
“You're putting him on trial for something he clearly hasn't done?” Harry asked.  
“On the contrary, Potter, the evidence points to the opposite. Weasley will be tried and either acquitted or sentenced as the Wizengamot sees fit.”  
“But he hasn't done anything!”  
“We will call upon you as an official witness, seeing as you were the last person to be in the same room as both Weasley and his niece. You will make your statement during the trial.”  
  
Harry looked at Ron then. His boyfriend stood stooped, his face pale and eyes rimmed red. There was nothing Harry could think to say to him.  
  
“As per protocol, we must bind you to escort you into custody,” one Auror said apologetically.  
“He works with you, for Godric's sake!” Harry snapped.  
“The law is the law, and law which Weasley himself has put into practice countless times. Bind his wrists.”  
  
Ron stood motionless as his wrists were gathered up and tethered in front of him.  
  
“You can't seriously be doing this...” Harry said finally. “This is ridiculous!”  
“We'll be in touch, Potter.”  
  
***  
  
“Here,” Charlie said, popping a cigarette in between Harry's lips and putting a bottle of something in his hand. “Smoke that and drink this. You're in shock, Harry. We all are.”  
  
Harry looked numbly around, seeing pale faces. Neither of them were shaking like he was, however. He sucked at the stick in between his lips and raised trembling fingers to take it from his mouth so that he could drink instead. The beer was bitter but he swallowed it anyway.  
  
“Why would he do this?” Harry asked for what felt like the thousandth time. “I know Percy's a tosser, but I never dreamt he would stoop this low... that he would...”  
“I know.” Charlie rubbed Harry's shoulder. “I don't know what's got into him.”  
“Ron loved her,” George said, grinding out his own cigarette. “He doted on her, we all saw that. I don't see what Perce thinks he can achieve by shafting this onto him. It's clearly a tragedy but for fuck's sake, blaming your own brother for the death of your baby? Babies die all the fucking time!”  
  
Despite his vehemence, they all knew that George's words weren't exactly true. Magical medicine out-rivalled its Muggle comparison by leagues. Children rarely died. Adults rarely died. Magic saved them from everything, it seemed, except time.  
  
“Something had to have been wrong inside,” George muttered.  
“They said she had all the signs of oxygen deprivation.”  
“But she could have just stopped breathing... had some sort of fit... something which stopped air getting into her lungs, I don't know.” George threw his hands up and some ash landed in the cup of coffee he was ignoring. “But Ron didn't kill her.”  
“Well, they'll surely make him submit to a veritaserum testimony?” Charlie asked, looking to Harry for confirmation.  
  
Harry took another drag and shook his head. He blew out the smoke before answering. “The main ingredient is against the new Wizard Rights Legislation put out last year. Too many people were coerced into taking it against their will which was against their human rights, apparently.”  
“But if he willingly submitted to a test?”  
“The Ministry law made brewing the potion an illegal activity. Their stocks were destroyed. Hermione did it herself. She told me.”  
“Well someone can always brew some fucking more!” George spat.  
“They can't,” Harry repeated. “It's illegal.”  
“I don't care!” George finally exploded. “If it's going to save Ron from going to prison in that fucking hellhole, then I'll do it myself and shit on the consequences!”  
  
His outburst had done it – named the word they had all been avoiding, and the topic they had all been ignoring: the question of the sentence that would be passed on Ron if the Wizengamot found him guilty of his niece's murder. Murder carried an indefinite life sentence of imprisonment in Azkaban. Even though the Dementors had been banished from the rock in the middle of the North Sea, it was still a formidable detention centre. Half of its inmates were mad and the rest were simply bad. Harry had been there himself a few times after the war, escorting war criminals to their new homes of an empty, cold cell. The thought of Ron being locked up in such a place made him want to hurl his beer bottle at the wall.  
  
“Where is everyone?” Harry asked finally, looking at the kitchen which was empty apart from Charlie and George.  
  
The two brothers shifted uncomfortably where they sat. Neither of them spoke. Harry looked at both of them, waiting for an answer, before it dawned on him.  
  
“Oh fuck... They think he did it, don't they? They think he was petty enough to kill a child?” Horror caused bile to rise in his throat – horror of the reality that some members of Ron's family believed the story that Percy had somehow concocted as truth.  
“They don't know what to believe.” Charlie's voice was hoarse. “They're in shock, I think. They can't believe she's gone. You know everyone doted on her.”  
“You're in shock, you loved her too!” Harry cried. “But you're here with me trying to think of ways we can show people that Ron's innocent... you don't believe he killed her, do you?”  
“Not for a minute,” Charlie promised. “Ron would never murder a baby... he would never murder anyone who hadn't tried to murder him first.”  
“Harry, we believe he didn't do it... but the rest of them... well... they see the ways in which things have gone on between Ron and Percy and when Percy found the wand... he spewed a pretty convincing lie that Ron had been sending him nasty howlers, threatening that if he didn't keep his opinions on your relationship to himself then something bad would happen.”  
  
“But how can they believe that?” Harry heard his voice break under the strain. He put his cigarette in the ashtray and set down his bottle of beer. He put his face in his hands. “How can they believe he would do it? He's such a fucking beautiful person. How can they think he would do it?”  
  
Neither of them could do anything but shrug at him. Harry fought hard to keep the sob building in his throat down. He had no idea where Ron was, other than somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry, or what conditions he was being held in. All he wanted was to hold him, to somehow make it better.  
  
“We're going to make this right, Harry.” One of them spoke warmly into his ear. Harry couldn't tell which of them it was. “I promise, we're going to sort this out.”  
  
***  
  
“Five minutes,” the guard said, slamming the door shut behind Harry as he stood looking into the room where Ron had been kept for forty-eight hours before Harry had been allowed to see him.  
  
His skin was ghostly pale and his hair was a greasy mess. He'd been looking rough when they'd arrested him – now he looked borderline deranged. There were deep purple circles beneath Ron's eyes, which were dulled and trained on the floor. He was sat on a hard bed wearing the same clothes he'd worn the morning of his arrest. Harry saw that his hands were still bound and anger flared within him. The cell was iron-wrought and escape-proof without a wand. Ron had no wand and there was no reason for his hands to still be bound.  
  
“Oh, Ron,” he said finally, flinging himself at the bed.   
  
He wrapped his arms tightly around him to find him shivering. Not surprised, considering the temperature of the room, Harry did not let go. He pressed a kiss to Ron's cheek and kept his face close.  
  
“Have they hurt you?” he whispered.  
“No.” Ron shook his head. “Just kept me in here.”  
“Are you being fed?”  
“Yeah.”  
  
Ron said nothing more and Harry leant back slightly, taking in the redhead's sorry profile.  
  
“I'm doing everything I can, I promise you,” Harry said. “I've managed to get in here, which is something... they've refused before. But I went to Kingsley and said that if I wasn't allowed to see you I'd quit the force, which isn't what they need right now. There's uproar in the community.”  
“Because I'm a baby killer,” Ron muttered.  
“Because the Prophet are shit-stirring like they always do,” Harry corrected gently. “If I quit the Auror Force they'll have a riot on their hands... you know the community likes thought of me being their eternal fucking protector against all evil.”  
“Except this time the evil was in your bed.”  
  
“Stop it.” Harry shook him, hard. “Ron, you're innocent. We both know you don't have it in you to kill anyone these days, least of all a baby... one you loved.”  
“I would never hurt her.” Ron's voice cracked and Harry felt his guts clench when he saw a wet dribble of tears escape from Ron's eyes. “I didn't kill her, Harry. Do you believe me?”  
“I would never doubt you,” Harry said fiercely. “Never. Percy's fabricated all this to fuck you over.”  
“I didn't think he hated me _this_ much,” Ron gasped, the tears beginning to fall even harder, splattering down onto his legs. “Why does it matter so much to him? Ginny's a big girl, she can fight her own battles... he doesn't have to come to our house and see us be gay. It should be nothing to him, Harry. Why is he doing this to me? Why?”  
“I don't know.” Harry shook his head, hating the feeling of helplessness which gnawed away at him as Ron seemed to shatter in his hands. “I don't know, Ron. I'm so sorry.”  
  
Ron leant his head against Harry's and closed his eyes. Harry noticed a wheeze in his breath. They sat in silence, precious seconds ticking away. Soon the guard would be back to turf him out and Harry had no idea how long it would be before they would allow him in again.  
  
“Have they told you when they're putting you on trial?” Harry asked finally.  
“No... but it must be soon, right?”  
“Have they offered you a defence?”  
  
Ron shook his head.  
  
“I'll get you someone,” Harry promised. “The best I can find, okay?”  
“It won't do any good.” Ron swallowed then, and looked up.   
  
Harry nearly cried at the resignation he saw in Ron's expression.  
  
“They'll charge me,” Ron breathed. “They'll lock me up. It's going to happen, Harry.”  
“Don't think like that-”  
“I'm thinking realistically,” Ron cut him off. His voice was suddenly hard. “My wand was in the room where she slept, having cast a spell which could have killed her. My only witness is my boyfriend. Veritaserum is now illegal. My brother is spouting Merlin-knows-what and people are listening to him. Half the family is probably listening to him. A child is dead and the community will want to see someone pay the price for that. That person will be me.”  
“Ron, please don't-”  
“We need to come to terms with it, Harry. Prepare yourself for the trial. Don't come. It'll only make things ten times worse for you. Stay at home, lock yourself away, hide from the papers. Disappear for a bit, and then, when you can, make a life for yourself. Find someone and move on. Be happy.”  
“You don't know what you're saying...” Harry took in Ron's glazed expression. “Ron, this can't happen.”  
  
Ron looked at him for a long while and then they both heard footsteps in the corridor outside.  
  
“It'll happen, Harry. Whether I'm guilty or innocent. Whether I'm sane or mad. Whatever legal representation you get me. I'm going to prison, Harry. At best I'll live a life with the stigma hanging over my head about the whole fucking thing. There's no way back from this, Harry... and that's what Percy wants. He wants me ruined, and like fucking always, he's going to get his way.”  
  
The heavy metal door to the room swung open and the guard entered, tapping his watch.  
  
“Ron-”  
“Just accept it, Harry.” Ron's tone turned to pleading. “It'll be so much easier on you if you do.”  
“I love you, and I'm not giving up on you, or us.”  
  
Ron said nothing. Harry looked at him, desperately trying to think of something else meaningful to say.  
  
“Don't give up,” he said finally, and got to his feet. He bent down and kissed Ron on the forehead. “Please don't give up on us, Ron.”  
  


* * *

  
  
The cold spray hit his body and Ron gasped, unable to stop the sting of the water from taking his breath away. He shivered as he was rinsed from head to toe, standing completely naked against a wall. His hair clung to the back of his neck as it dripped.  
  
“Turn around.” The command was barked. He moved slowly, his joints frozen from the cold air and the colder water.   
  
He jerked as a fresh spray hit him. He thought perhaps he should be grateful. It was the first wash he'd had in two weeks. Two weeks he had been kept in the cell beneath the Ministry, with nothing of his own. Nothing but a too-small blanket and a toilet in the corner and the clothes he had been arrested in. Now those clothes were gone.   
  
A thin sheet was thrown at him. “Dry yourself, and be quick about it.”  
  
Forcing his unwilling fingers to rub the stiff fabric over his skin, Ron noticed his teeth begin to chatter. They rattled his brain. He held out the sheet when he was finished. It was swapped for a cotton uniform. He chucked it on in haste to try and get warm, but the clothes offered little comfort against the biting chill of the room.  
  
“Weasley, do you want to keep your hair?”  
“What?” Ron frowned.  
“Hair. Most prisoners find it easier to have their hair shaved off so they don't have to maintain it.”  
  
Ron blinked.  
  
“Make a decision!”  
“No,” he croaked in response. “Leave it.” It was, after all, another defence against the cold.  
  
The guard made a sound of disapproval and indicated to some plain canvas shoes on the floor. Ron wordlessly put them on. They were the itchiest things he had ever worn, and the dampness clinging between his toes didn't help. He followed the man when he was bidden, feeling sullied and unusual as his body walked without underwear. The uniform was a cotton robe and didn't come issued with undergarments. His cock grazed over the fabric with each step he took.  
  
The walk was long and they began to pass other cells; some had inmates peering through the bars, staring at him. Many of them had the same hollow look in their eyes. Others wore jeering smiles. Others looked pitying.  
  
Ron's feet were numb by the time the guard in front of him came to a stop, several corridors away from where they had begun. The cell door was opened and Ron entered what he knew was to be his home for the rest of his life. It was bleak. So dark, a steady drip from the ceiling in one corner. A hard bed, a rusting toilet and sink. A barred window which, from the sounds coming in, overlooked the sea. A lump formed in his throat.  
  
“Food will be brought to you at meal times,” the guard explained. “You will be released from your cell at different times in the day to tend to personal hygiene and to obtain exercise. You will spend the rest of the time in your cell. Is that understood, Inmate Weasley?”  
  
 _Inmate Weasley._ The name echoed round in Ron's mind. If he had the energy, he would have recoiled at it. How had he come to this? How had he ended up in hell?  
  
“I understand,” he said quietly, and the cell door slammed shut behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains distressing content and you are urged to read the warnings / content clearly before progressing.
> 
> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Four (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, Homophobia, angst, violent concurrent non-consensual sex, severe mental illness and suicidal ideation.  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~7,608  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes... >> “I dreamed a dream my life would be so different from this hell I'm living.”

**Chapter Four**  
  
  
He jerked awake suddenly, moaning as bright light hurt his eyes. It did it every morning, flooding through the barred window, cruelly placed to wake him in his bed in the same painful way. He rubbed at his eyes, feeling the crusty sleep in the corners. His back was stiff from the hardness of his bed. He knew that some of the other prisoners had talked the guards into performing cushioning charms on their beds, and that they slept soundly for their wheedling. No guard would even talk to him, however, so he had little chance of anyone helping him out.  
  
Ron swung his legs over the edge of the bed and looked at his cell, flooded with sunlight. Even the brightness couldn't lift it to be anywhere close to a habitable dwelling. As had become his norm, he stood up and then climbed on the bed frame to prop his arms up against the wall. He looked out at the sea, which was calm that morning, and bluer than usual. Normally it was a steely grey that befitted his setting.  
  
Three weeks he had been a prisoner inside Azkaban. Three weeks he had lived in virtual silence, only ever muttering apologies when he got in someone's way in the courtyard or the occasional courtesy to a guard. Ron found he had nothing to say. He did not, as some of the other prisoners did, feel there was anything to be gained by continually proclaiming his innocence. He would only feel a fool for begging for release, as some did. He did not want to make small talk with his gaolers, as plenty seemed able to. He preferred to say silent, to keep to himself. Somehow it made the hell he was living in more bearable.  
  
Nobody made the effort to talk to him and he had had no visitors. That didn't hurt him as it might once have done. He suspected that Harry was being kept from him, and the family members who did not think him a heartless murderer the same. He was glad those that thought the opposite were not allowed to visit. Of all the things which had happened, Ron thought the most hurtful might have been that his mother had not protested his innocence, but believed Percy's lies. His own mother had given up on him. Ron wondered if there was any point to living when the woman who had brought him into the world had given him up for dead.  
  
Death seemed to be a daily occurrence within the prison's walls. There were inmates who had been there so long that they simply died in their sleep. They were removed and buried in the graveyard beyond the walls. Ron assumed that one day this would be his fate, too, as he had been given a life sentence and expected to serve every single year of it. Nobody would come to his rescue, because there was no rescue to be had.  
  
His thoughts turned, as they often did, back to the day of the trial. He tried to block out the sounds of Harry's anguished shout when the verdict of guilty was passed and the sentence delivered. It made him sick to think of what he had put Harry through. It made him sick to think of the love he had been stripped of, that he would never experience again. At night, when he lay in bed, his body tried to remember Harry. The images came and wouldn't leave – the memories of sex, the recollections of touch and smell and taste. They plagued him and Ron at first had indulged them, but they only made it worse. He would wank and come and then burst into tears knowing that was all he would ever have again, a hand. So he had stopped. When the thoughts came, he blocked them, and pinched his genitals and thighs so hard that his cock fell dormant with the pain. It was simply easier that way.  
  
He had been right in his predictions. The Wizengamot had barely even considered his pitiful defence before declaring him guilty. Ron had been ready for it. Harry had not been. His optimism had continued to build and as such he was shattered by the guilty verdict. His cries had echoed in Ron's ears as they escorted him from the court room and lead him to the Portkey to take him to Azkaban.  
  
The sound of footsteps in the corridor jerked him back to reality and Ron jumped down from the bed. He sat at the end of it and looked at the wall, waiting to see if anything would happen. He had slept a little later than usual, he could tell from the position of the shadows on his wall, but not late enough to miss the hour allotted for his level to wash. A sharp thud on his door sounded and then it opened.  
  
“Hygiene hour. Report to the shower room immediately.”  
“Yes Sir.”  
  
Ron felt his legs creak as they lengthened in stride into the corridor. He spent so much time staying still that when he actually did move his body protested. He made his way to the shower room, a path which had become so familiar that he didn't even need to look where he was going. He joined the end of the queue and took a towel and a bar of soap from the guard supervising the prisoners waiting. He was at the end of the line. He recognised the faces in front of him. They had to shower one by one, in the supervision of a guard to prevent any attempts of escape or suicide. At first Ron had been reluctant to strip off and shower in front of a stranger, but, like the rest of his routine, it had become normal somewhere along the line. He leant against the wall as he waited, appreciating the larger windows and extended view they awarded. The sea was calm and blue from there, too, and he enjoyed looking at it as it sparkled beneath some rare sunshine. In the distance he thought he could see a large boat, seemingly still on the waves. Someone had opened a window slightly, and the air was fresh, almost nectarish, to taste.  
  
Slowly the line in front of him began to disappear. One by one his fellow inmates emerged into the room and came back out damp and pink. Unlike on the day of his admission, they were permitted hot water and soap to wash in. It was the only warm part of Ron's day. Finally, when the man in front of him disappeared into the bathroom, Ron was able to sit on the stone waiting bench outside the door. He could hear water running within the room and the sound of whistling.  
  
It seemed to go on forever, the annoyingly chirpy whistle and the sound of water falling from the man's body. When it finally shut off, he must have taken a good five minutes to dry off his body. The door opened and the prisoner wandered back down the corridor, and started to whistle again. Ron wondered what the fuck anyone could find to whistle so cheerily about in hell. He opened the door to the bathroom and was met with steam so intense that he coughed.  
  
He placed his towel on a hook and stripped off his uniform robes, leaving them half-folded on another stone bench. He stepped into the shower cubicle and turned on the water, revelling in the first hit of the spray as it landed on him. It was heaven – the only little part of heaven he was allowed. He pumped some shampoo into his hand from the bottle provided and began to lather up his hair. He had been right not to have it shaved off, he thought. He ducked his head back under the water, closing his eyes, and rinsed the lather away, sending it down the drain. It smelt generic and brought no pleasure other than being clean at the end of the process.  
  
Opening his eyes, Ron thought to reach for his soap, but the presence of the guard's figure made him jump instead. The man was shorter than him, and broader. He was watching with widened eyes. Ron froze. He'd been waiting for this moment, but praying it would not happen. His sexuality had been blown all over the newspapers during the wait for his trial. It was no secret to anybody now that he was homosexual and that he had been fucking The Boy Who Lived. He had been waiting for somebody to abuse that knowledge, and it looked like that day had come.  
  
“Do you know what I want?” the guard asked, his voice low and husky.  
“No, Sir,” Ron replied, keeping his eyes on the ground. “All I want to do is have a wash and go back to my cell.”  
“You can go back to your cell...” the guard stepped closer. “After I get what I want”  
“What do you want?” Ron breathed, stepping back and pressing against the wall.  
  
Despite the water still pouring, the guard kept coming, drenching his robes and hair.  
  
“I want to fuck you.”  
  
Ron swallowed. He'd been expecting a blow job or a hand job. Something non-penetrative. The thought of being penetrated by anyone that wasn't Harry made him want to cry and, to his horror, a lump formed in his throat again. He knew if he cried, it would be ten times worse.  
  
“I'm going to fuck you,” the man informed him, reaching down and taking Ron's cock in hand. “Turn around and face the wall.”  
  
Ron looked at him, wondering if he could beg. If he could bring himself to beg. The man took his hesitation for refusal and scowled; he grabbed him by the arms and forcibly turned him, thrusting him hard against the wall. Ron held his breath as the man muttered an incantation and bound his wrists to the shower unit. His hips were pulled backwards and his arse cheeks apart. Warm water slithered down between them, over his hole, and he shuddered.  
  
Something blunt pressed against him and he jerked. The man held him in place and Ron's stomach turned at the realisation that the guard intended to take him unprepared, without lubricant.  
  
“No, you've got to... you need to...” he tried to get the words out, but they wouldn't come.  
“I've 'got to' do nothing. Shut the fuck up.”  
  
Ron's scream burned his throat when the guard shoved into him.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
It had been a month since Harry had last seen Ron at the trial. He had spent four weeks campaigning hard to get an appeal, to get to see his boyfriend – to get anything, and he had got nowhere. He stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and automatically reached for the packet to light another. Even though the cigarettes were practically harmless compared to their Muggle counterparts, they were just as addictive and Harry wasn't sure his bank balance was going to thank Charlie Weasley for his new favourite stress reliever.  
  
It was for Charlie that he sat waiting outside a café just off the main lane of Diagon Alley. He'd not bothered to order a drink, choosing to wait for Charlie to arrive instead. He'd received a message asking him to be there at a certain time but the redhead was late. Harry sighed. He could be at home ploughing through the law books again. He would go blind, he was sure, from searching the old texts to find something to help Ron's cause. There had to have been something he had missed, that the legal representative had missed. There had to be something that would get Ron out of prison, he was sure.  
  
Just when he was thinking about giving up the ghost and going home, Harry heard hurried footsteps and looked up. Charlie dodged some of the crowds and rushed up to him.  
  
“Are you mad, sitting outside?” the redhead gaped. “It's nearly fucking Christmas, Harry, and it's freezing!”  
“Is it?” Harry looked around him, seeing people in thick gloves and cloaks. “Oh.”  
“What am I going to do with you?” Charlie sighed, shaking his head. “Up. Get inside before you catch your death.” He stole Harry's cigarette and chucked it on the floor, grinding it out with the tip of his boot.  
  
As he obeyed, Harry couldn't help but think how much Charlie sounded like Molly. How, in the past few weeks, he had become a mothering figure in Molly's absence. Harry drifted silently to a free table and unwound his scarf from his neck as Charlie ordered them some drinks, not even bothering to ask what Harry wanted. When he finally sat down opposite, Harry looked at him and found him pale, the tip of his nose red with cold, and his eyes tired.  
  
“Why so secret squirrel?” Harry asked finally, reaching out for a sugar packet to fiddle with.  
  
Charlie didn't answer for a while, choosing to pull off his own gloves and scarf and unzip the dragonhide jacket which clung to his muscles. Underneath Harry saw that he wore an old Weasley Christmas jumper, which was bobbled and had a hole on the shoulder. Something in his belly pulled. Somehow he'd been ignoring Christmas, but it was steaming up like the Hogwarts Express at full pelt and there was nothing he could do to stop it. There was nothing he could do to solve the problem that Ron was locked on a rock in the middle of the freezing North Sea, and he would be alone.  
  
He was no longer welcome at The Burrow, it seemed. In her grief, Molly Weasley had turned away from him as she had turned away from her own son, and in fear of their own relationships with her, Arthur and Bill had followed suit. Only Charlie and George remained his companions, which Harry found odd, considering they both still lived at home. But he knew that George had been spending more time in the flat above his shop again and wouldn't have been surprised if Charlie had been sleeping on his sofa.  
  
Harry was grateful for whatever company they could give him. In the run up to the trial he hadn't even spared a thought for the devastating loneliness which would follow if Ron was sentenced to prison. It had crushed him in a way he had never felt possible, and he was no stranger to loneliness. He had spent his childhood alone and being ostracised for being different. It was nothing to being parted from the man that, he had come to realise, he loved with every fibre of his being. His lungs actually ached when he woke up in the morning and Ron wasn't there.  
  
“Perce was at the house last night,” Charlie said quietly. “So was Ginny.”  
“Oh, bet that was fun.” Harry made a face and continued screwing up the sugar packet in his fingers.  
“It was weird.” Charlie laughed a mirthless little laugh and shook his head. “You wouldn't think he was a father who had just lost his firstborn.”  
“Why?”  
  
They paused as the waitress delivered their hot drinks and thanked her. She was back behind the counter before Charlie spoke again.  
  
“He seemed elated.”  
  
Harry dropped the sugar packet. “He's happy about it?”  
“I had to leave,” Charlie advised him. “I actually heard him say that he felt so relieved now that his 'monster' of a brother was behind bars. It was all I could do not to punch him, Harry.”  
  
Alarmed at the wetness which had sprung up in Charlie's eyes, Harry froze. Charlie had been a rock for him throughout the whole sorry mess and he didn't know how to handle the sudden display of emotion.  
  
“Needless to say, I packed my bag last night and left while he was still there. I won't be going back. I don't want to be under any roof where he's welcome.”  
“What did your mum say?”  
  
Charlie laughed hard then, hanging his head and looking down at his thighs. “Nothing. She just let me go. No questions, no nothing. I left and she let me. Dad wasn't there, he was still at work.”  
“Your Dad wouldn't have let you go,” Harry tried, hoping that his voice sounded soothing.  
“I'm not so sure these days, Harry. I don't know what's got into any of them. It's like they've completely forgotten what Percy did during the war... he's back to being that Saint who can't be crossed. She won't hear a bad word against him. In her mind he's the wronged party, the grieving father...”  
“And she thinks Ron's the monster,” Harry finished for him.  
  
They sat in grim silence as the café continued with life around them.  
  
“So,” Charlie said finally, picking up a teaspoon and stirring his coffee. “Anything new with you? Any luck on your application for visitation rights?”  
“Of course not.” Harry sneered down at the table. “They keep telling me it's the rule of the prison that new inmates can't have visitors for the first three months. He must think I've abandoned him.”  
“Have you still been sending letters?” Charlie enquired.  
“Yeah, but they only get passed on at the discretion of the Head Gaoler. He was there at the trial. He won't do us any favours.”  
“You've got to keep trying.”  
“I know that,” Harry said hotly. “I won't give up... but I'm running out of things to say. I love you. I believe you're innocent. I miss you. There's only so many times you can write that shit before the words seem hollow, Charlie. If he ever does get those letters, they're going to look like a steaming pile of shit, meaningless words. He'll hate me for them.”  
  
Charlie shrugged apologetically and Harry didn't blame him. It was impossible to know what to say. Nobody at work had had the words and that was why, Harry had suspected, he had been put on paid leave for an extended period. Nobody wanted to look at his miserable face and nobody wanted to waste their energy making up commiserations which would fall short. There was nothing that could make the situation any better.  
  
“I just wish I knew how he was,” Harry muttered finally, knocking back some coffee. “One second. That's all I want. They... they would tell me, wouldn't they? If he was ill or... worse?”  
“Don't think like that. Ron's stronger inside than any of us ever give him credit for.”  
“But in that sort of environment? We both know how depressed he can get. I saw it when we were fighting the war and again at the start of our relationship. He bottles everything up and it rots his core until he falls apart. Then he has to rebuild himself and every time he does it, he's that little bit weaker.”  
  
Tears began to cloy the back of his throat and Harry fell silent, staring down into his coffee. “I need some air,” he decided finally, and got to his feet.  
  
Even though their drinks were unfinished, Charlie followed him into the lane outside and waited as Harry gulped at the December air. His face was hot and his pulse thudded in his ears. He jumped when Charlie's hands settled on his shoulders and pulled him into an embrace which Harry couldn't have refused if he wanted to – he was so starved of human touch that it was like a sweet poison into his blood. He needed it.  
  
It was nothing but brotherly, but it was the only thing that was going to calm him down, Harry recognised. Charlie was strong standing against him, a physical pillar of strength whilst Harry's own mind seemed to lose its resolve.  
  
“My relationship is over,” he breathed, not caring if Charlie could hear him. “Ron knew it. He said as much two weeks before the trial. He guessed what was going to happen. I wouldn't believe it but it's true. It's over.”  
“It's not over until you stop loving him, Harry,” Charlie pointed out. “And you didn't risk a family rift for someone who you would stop loving at the drop of a hat, did you?”  
“No... but how's it ever going to work? He's going to be locked up for the rest of his life. I can't even see him. We'll never...” A virtual monologue of all the things they would never share again ran through his mind and Harry shuddered.  
“You will,” Charlie promised. “You're going to have all those things again because he's innocent, and somehow, no matter how long it takes, we're going to prove that.”  
“How?”  
  
Charlie ran out of answers and stepped back, hopelessly shrugging his shoulders. “Not a clue. But we will, Harry. We can't give up on him.”  
  
Harry nodded, feeling utterly ashamed of himself. He had spoken the words aloud that he had promised himself he never would – that his and Ron's relationship was over because of what had happened. Somewhere on a dark night, when the bed had been lonely and cold, he had promised himself he would never permit that, because it was what Percy wanted. He clearly wanted them apart. Harry had resolved then and there that Percy would never truly win. Harry felt that even his words had been a small victory on the side of the third Weasley son.  
  
“Come on,” Charlie said, putting an arm around Harry's shoulders. “Let's go for a walk. Clear the cobwebs a bit, and see if we can't think of something else to do.”  
  
It seemed fruitless, even with the optimism that Charlie injected into the words, but Harry nodded in agreement. He had nothing else to do.  
  
They drifted back to the main Alley, which was full of Christmas shoppers, whose faces were alive with either excitement or frustration for the season. Witches struggled along, their hands full of bags containing presents for their loved ones. Harry was swamped with the image of Ron in a miserable cell on Christmas Day.  
  
“We should go and see George,” he said dully as he set eyes on Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.  
  
The shop front was as garish as ever but it was comforting. As they approached, a gaggle of excited children burst out of the front door, followed by a beleaguered-looking mother.  
  
“George will be immortalised within the walls of Hogwarts forever...” Charlie allowed himself a chuckle. “Every product he makes will be banned immediately, and therefore be all over the castle within weeks.”  
“He saved our arse several times,” Harry admitted with a grin. “I know he and Fred supplied Ginny for free in that last year...”  
“Fred probably would have sent them all stuff for free if it meant terrorising Snape.”  
  
They laughed together then and Harry spared a thought for the man who seemed to be content living quietly on his own, away from the wizarding community. He hadn't seen him for some time before everything with Ron had begun. An idea struck him then, one which he didn't see how he could have surpassed before.  
  
“Snape.”  
“What about him?”  
“He might be able to help us. He was a Potions Master.”  
“So?”  
“Veritaserum might be banned, but maybe there's something else... maybe there's something better.”  
“We'd still have to get the authorities to consent to its use... but it might work.”  
  
Harry made to open the shop door when someone called his name. He turned and saw the speaker.  
  
“Audrey.” Her name wobbled out over his tongue.  
  
She looked pale and much thinner than the last time he had seen her. Her hair was scraped back in a greasy ponytail rather than in its usual carefree, flowing cascade down her back. She was huddled in a thick Muggle coat, her hands rammed in the pockets.  
  
“Harry,” she repeated, coming to a stop in front of them.  
  
Charlie stiffened beside him and put a warning hand on Harry's arm.  
  
“I'm not going to do anything,” Audrey said quietly. “I just wanted to say, Harry, that I'm so sorry about what's happened to Ron. I'm so sorry.”  
  
Harry watched her break down in front of him and glanced at Charlie for help.  
  
“Come into the shop,” Charlie suggested, putting the same arm around her shoulders that had been around Harry's only moments before. “Don't cry out here. I'll make my little brother put the kettle on and you can have a sit down.”  
  
Harry followed them into the shop, which luckily was devoid of customers at that precise moment. George took one look at his new visitors and opened the door to the back room.  
  
“Verity, can you watch the shop for me?”  
“Of course I can. Do you want me to make the tea?”  
  
Harry had grown to like Verity over the years. She had taken a bad hit during a Death Eater raid during the war, and had suffered a great many burns to one side of her body. She had not worked at the shop after that, but then neither had Fred and George, seeing as they couldn't. After Fred's death and George's eventual return to life from the loss of his twin, she was the first one on the doorstep. She wanted to help, she wanted her job back. She said she couldn't let George start up again without her there to help him along. Ron had grown to like her too as he had helped George rebuild the business. She was someone who they all cared for, who they liked, and who, because of the terrible injuries sustained during their war, they would never exclude from their lives.  
  
“I'll do that,” George insisted. “You sit tight here. I don't know how long we'll be.”  
  
She nodded understandably and gave Harry a timid wave. He nodded back to her and followed as George led the way to the tiny flat above the shop. It was cramped and on hot days smelt strongly of gunpowder, but it was homely and warm in the winter. Charlie deposited Audrey on the sofa and found her a tissue, whilst George put the kettle on. Harry shut the door and undid his coat.  
  
“I'm sorry,” Audrey muttered, over and over again. “You don't need this.”  
“You sit there and cry,” George instructed, perching on the coffee table in front of the sofa and before her. He took one of her hands in his own.  
  
Audrey's impact on the family had been so profound after the war that the Weasley boys seemed to accept her as a sister automatically. There was no sense of worry that a step might be too far – they looked after her as they had looked after Ginny. That was evident in the careful touches that Charlie and George had bestowed upon her. Harry hung back, watching the scene.  
  
“I'm so sorry about Ron,” she cried again, rubbing roughly at her eyes with the tissue. “God knows what he must be going through it that fucking place.”  
  
She shook her head and looked at them one by one. Charlie looked furtively at Harry and then spoke.  
  
“Audrey... when you say you're sorry... does this mean that you don't believe that Ron killed Molly?”  
“Of course he didn't!” she burst out loudly. “I knew she was unwell. I'd known for weeks that something wasn't right, but the Healers couldn't find anything wrong. D'you remember, Harry? The night of that awful bloody dinner which seemed to be the last straw between the two of them?”  
  
Harry nodded. “I remember. You said you were leaving because you were worried about Molly, that she'd been unwell that day.”  
“It wasn't a lie – but it was a bloody good excuse to get out of there. If we'd never come perhaps Ron would be with us here now and not in the middle of the North fucking Sea.”  
  
Her language grew more colourful as she went on and George stuffed a whole box of tissues in her hand.  
  
“I knew she wasn't right. Her death was natural, I'm sure of it. Babies... sometimes they just die.” She paused for a sob as the reality of her situation slammed into her again. “My baby died. She wasn't murdered. Not by Ron, he loved her. I know he's innocent and I can't grieve for my child whilst I know an innocent man is locked up for the crime of her death when he had nothing to do with it.”  
  
“Why didn't you say anything during the trial?” George prompted softly.  
“I tried.” She shook her head. “But Percy told them that I was mad with grief and trying to rationalise it because I couldn't understand why anyone would be so evil as to kill a child. I tried to speak to them on my own but they didn't really listen.”  
“They had their minds made up before the Wizengamot even sat,” Charlie put in bitterly. “Ron thought as much himself.”  
  
“Ron's always been so good to me, so nice... I know he's innocent.”  
“We merry few...” George sighed, rubbing his hand over his face.  
  
“Today is the first chance I've had away from him to come to you,” Audrey explained. “He's been watching me like a hawk... so controlling. He's not the man I fell in love with. I know none of you ever understood why I did in the first place, but he's not himself...”  
“Do you have any idea what his real motive is?” Harry asked. “It seems so much for just being gay... Charlie's gay. He's not been framed for murder.”  
“Ginny,” Audrey said simply. “I can't figure out her involvement though. I've got no idea what it is about her but he's fixated on her in all of this. He's furious that she's not happily married with you... and that Ron was with you instead.”  
“But it's none of his business.”  
“He's never been good at keeping his conk out of other people's business,” George pointed out. “And he always seemed to love having a go at Ron when we were kids... but this... this is something else.”  
“What I can't believe is that the others seem to believe him,” Audrey went on. “Your Mum... she believes him. She's content that her youngest son is in prison. I can't understand it. I just can't.”  
  
She dissolved into tears again and finally hid her face from view. The three of them took that opportunity to swap stunned looks.  
  
“What do we do now?” George mouthed at Harry, and Harry could do nothing but shrug in response.  
  
He was suddenly very tired and he wanted to go to bed. He wanted to go to bed and imagine that Ron was wrapped around him, holding him tight, stroking his hair. He wanted to feel his lover against him.  
  
“I should go,” Audrey said suddenly, jumping up. “If he makes it home before me and I'm not there he'll want to know where I've been.”  
“Audrey, he's not... he's not... treating you badly, is he?” Charlie asked cautiously. “He's not hurting you?”  
“He barely touches me. If he were to hit me it would be the first bodily contact we've had in a month.”  
“Don't wish that on yourself.” George folded his arms over his chest. “Please, Audrey. Promise us that if you start to become afraid, you'll come to us?”  
“I will,” she promised. “I'll come here.”  
“As of last night we're both sleeping here,” George informed her. “So night or day, there'll always be someone here for you. Would you like a key so that you can get in if you need to?”  
  
Audrey paused, weighing up the offer. Finally she nodded. George got up and opened a drawer in the kitchen. He pulled a heavy key out which had an old bit of burgundy ribbon tied to the end of it.  
  
“Was that-”  
“Here,” George said, cutting Charlie off abruptly. “Keep it safe and use it whenever you feel the need. I mean it.”  
  
Audrey's thanks were lost to George's neck as she hugged him tightly, and then she fled from the room without another glance at any of them.  
  
“Was that Fred's key?” Charlie asked solemnly, eyes trained on George.  
  
George finally tore his own gaze away from the door through which Audrey had departed. “Yeah. It's not like he's around to use it any more, is it?”  
  
When the bedroom door slammed, separating them, Harry swallowed hard.  
  
“I should go,” he said, making for the door.  
“I'll stay with him.” Charlie nodded to where George had disappeared. “He never gives away Fred's stuff. Ever.”  
  
Harry nodded and pulled out his wand.  
  
***  
  
Wrapped in sheets which smelt of Ron, wearing one of Ron's jumpers, and using Ron's pillow, it was almost like he was there. Harry held himself tightly in the bed, trying to keep himself together, even though he knew he was fighting a losing battle. The day's revelations with Audrey had taken their toll and he was hurting, hurting so painfully that it reminded him of the times when he had been near to Voldemort and it had felt like his head was going to split open. Ron had always been there during those times, and now, he was not.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Ron methodically worked the pebble across the wall, marking another day in his cell. So close up, he couldn't see for little counters, one for each of the two and a half months he had been in prison. He didn't know why he was bothering to count. If he planned to count the rest of his life out in little markers he was going to need a considerably bigger cell, and Azkaban only came with one-size-fits-all bedrooms.  
  
When he was satisfied, he returned to his bed and slipped the rock beneath the thin mattress so it sat flush to the frame. Then he sat down and rubbed his knee. It was aching with the cold of the cell. It had been aching for weeks. His entire body was aching. It hurt more when the guard visited. Ron closed his eyes and laid down on his hard bed, his feet dangling over the end. He listened to the sound of the rough sea outside and the seagulls crying above it. A shiver passed through him. All around him the rock was quiet. There was nobody screaming that day, there were no heavy footsteps in the corridors. The guards had stopped coming to offer him time in the exercise garden. He had stopped taking it weeks ago. He had stopped visiting the shower room, too. He could never bring himself to enter it after what had happened there.  
  
As if remembering the act, his backside clenched and he could feel the pain all over again. He could feel the slide of blood down his thighs as the guard slammed into him, over and over again. Ron swallowed away his sick, knowing that if he choked it up he would have to live with the smell of it if he didn't make it to the toilet.  
  
The guards had very little to do with him. They still brought food to him, but more often than not the tray was taken away untouched. Ron couldn't bring himself to eat anything they gave him. It was tainted by what the wizard had done to him. Ron had never imagined that he could feel so unclean, so corrupted by another person, but now he understood what it was to have been violated. Rape did not seem to be uncommon within the prison walls. He remembered one night after his own attack when he was woken up by the violent screams of somebody down the corridor, someone screaming for help from an attacker who clearly liked the sound of his despair. Ron had lain curled up in a ball, hands clamped over his ears, screaming to block the sound out. Nobody came to help the victim, and nobody had come to see why Ron was screaming. Everyone was left to fend for themselves.  
  
He knew he had lost an extreme amount of weight from the way his uniform hung on him. He had never been anything but thin, but he could see his bones jutting out on his hips. He could feel his collar bones more prominently than ever before. He wondered how long it would be before anyone intervened, or if they would even bother. Ron had decided he would prefer it if they didn't.  
  
He didn't see the point in prolonging the agony. His life was static, his only function to serve as a sexual outlet for a frustrated guard. There was nothing he would ever look forward to again. Nothing he could ever take enjoyment from. He would never be loved again. He would never make any of the dreams he'd had for himself come true. It was a crushing realisation, and after he had been raped the first time, he had realised it with cold, hard clarity. His mind was slipping away from him. More often than not he found himself sitting in a trance, staring at the walls, thinking about nothing at all. He had only white noise in between his ears. Sometimes he changed his view and stared out of the window at the sea, but found himself wishing that the sea would rise up around the building and drown them all.  
  
Ron recognised the darkness which had enveloped him. He was no stranger to depression, but knew he had never experienced it to these depths before. Before there had always been people to rescue him from its clutches, to wrap him up warmly before the black ice could curl in his heart and glaze him over forever.  
  
This time, Ron knew there was no such reprieve coming. Nobody was going to save him. He had never had to save himself before and he didn't know how to fight the darkness, when it was all around him, when it crept out of every wall and crevice. No, the darkness would swallow him whole, and he would fall, screaming with horror, over the edge of the precipice, because there was nothing else he could do to stop it from taking him.  
  
Suddenly there were footsteps in his quiet sanctuary. They were walking all the way down the corridor, two pairs of feet, and Ron waited, lying prone on his bed. His cell was the last on the wing. The feet stopped outside his door and then the viewing gate slid back.  
  
“In here,” the guard said, opening the door.  
  
Ron blinked, confused. He opened his mouth to ask what he was being examined for but his voice failed him, grating in his throat. He hadn't spoken for several days.  
  
“Sometimes he just lies there all day,” the guard said to the man who stepped into the room. “He won't get up for a wash, he won't get up to exercise, he won't get up to eat.”  
  
Panicked, Ron backed himself into the corner at the top of his bed and drew his legs up to his body. He had assumed that if he chose to waste away inside Azkaban then he would be left to do so, not that anybody would come and run their hands over him, like -  
  
“Don't come near me,” he burst out, as the Healer – he suddenly recognised the pale blue robes – started across his cell. “I don't want to be looked at.”  
“That's the most he's spoken in weeks.”  
  
Was it weeks? Ron could have sworn it had only been days since he had slipped into a private vow of silence.  
  
“I just need to examine you,” the Healer said, his voice soothing. “And then we'll leave you alone.”  
“You might, he won't,” Ron said hotly.  
“Who's he?” the Healer asked.  
“Nobody,” Ron muttered, backtracking and shaking his head. “Nobody. Leave me alone. Please, leave me alone.”  
“I'm afraid I can't do that.”  
  
The Healer set his bag down on Ron's bed and the invasion of privacy made Ron want to scream. It was his cell, his hell, and he wanted them out of it. He jumped to his feet, bones crunching as he went, and threw himself at the opposite wall, desperate to put as much distance between them as he could. The Healer would see what had been done to him. The Healer would know his shame, and Ron didn't think he could bear the thought of it.  
  
“You can't touch me,” he cried out, as the man came towards him. Ron dodged past him and jumped onto the bed, reaching out for the only thing he could – the bars on the window.  
  
He locked his fingers around them tight and held on. They wouldn't break his fingers, he reasoned, and if he held on tight enough they would not force him away from the bars. He clung to them, sucking in mouthfuls of sea air. He became dizzy quickly, having not moved so fast for a long time.  
  
“I think you'd better call for another guard,” the Healer advised. Ron tried to block him out. “I may need you to restrain him while I examine him.”  
“DON'T TOUCH ME!” Ron shouted, throwing his head back so hard that he thought his windpipe might snap open. “I DON'T WANT YOU TO TOUCH ME!”  
“Immobilus.”  
  
He would have howled if the spell would have allowed it. To be trapped by the same spell that he was accused of killing a baby with was like a punch in the gut, and locked into stillness, Ron could do nothing but absorb the pain into his organs and bones. He watched through misty vision as his view changed, as they rearranged his position on the bed so that he could see the ceiling.  
  
He began to feel hands skirting over his body, lifting up the filthy robe he wore and touching his skin. Open mouthed, he couldn't protest when a potion was trickled slowly past his tongue. It tasted of strawberry. Only when he saw his legs be parted in front of him did Ron realise that the Immobilus had been lifted, and they had plugged him with some kind of sedative to prevent him from fighting. He cried out when warm fingers prodded his anus, which had never been treated after he was raped. It was still sore.  
  
“It was as you suspected,” the Healer said finally, pulling Ron's robe back down and restoring him to modesty.  
  
Ron listened as if from under water.  
  
“I knew it,” the guard said. “The change in him was too quick. He walked wrong. And he went downhill so fast... not eating, not drinking, not talking, not leaving his cell.”  
“These injuries were sustained some time ago. Why was a Healer not requested sooner?”  
  
Ron heard the shuffling of feet on the stone floor.  
  
“Rape happens, Sir, this is a prison, and these people are criminals. There are guards who take punishment into their own hands. Some prisoners cope with it. Some don't. Weasley obviously hasn't. We left him to his own devices until we noticed how thin he'd got. Then we called you.”  
“Absolutely unacceptable. You allow rape to go on under this roof in the name of punishment? You allow those employed by this institution to take the deliverance of justice into their own hands?”  
“The Ministry have never done anything about it when it's been reported. Over the years... people just stopped reporting it.”  
“This man needs proper nourishment and medical care, not to mention some form of support regarding the ordeal he's been through since arriving here.”  
“He's a prisoner,” the guard said. “He's not allowed out of the prison.”  
“Well then someone will have to treat him within its walls, won't they?”  
  
Ron tried to tell them that he didn't want treatment. He tried to tell them that he wanted to die. But all he heard was a slurred moan from his lips. He tried to move and found himself completely exhausted and everything felt like jelly.  
  
“We ain't got an on-site Healer,” the guard protested. “It was too much for one. We weren't allowed two. We don't even have a medical wing.”  
  
They left the cell then, slamming the door shut behind them. Ron heard them arguing all the way down the corridor until the sound of their voices faded away. He lay, stricken and silent, on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Tears blurred his vision. He wished he could wipe them away as they started to trickle down over his cheeks and onto his neck and into his ears. If the guard came now, he would have no defence. He would have no voice to fight with.  
  
Ron choked on his tears, rendered still, just like the baby he was supposed to have murdered.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Five (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, angst, severe neglect.  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~5,030  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes. >> Love is a battlefield...

**Chapter Five**  
  
  
“It's been three months,” Harry snarled. “He can have visitors now. That's the rule, isn't it?”  
“Mr Weasley is on a strict no visitation policy, Potter, and that is not going to change.”  
  
Harry felt like picking up the chair he was sitting it on and throwing it at the Head Gaoler's face. His palms were slick with sweat and his pulse was deafening in his ears. He'd had enough of being separated. Somewhere within the godforsaken rock on which he sat, Ron was cooped up in a cell, alone.  
  
“Nobody's even reported to me how he is!” Harry cried. “I don't even know if he's in good health or not. You could at least have the decency to tell me that, for Godric's sake!”  
“Mr Weasley is in fine health,” the man said, too quickly. “Now, Mr Potter, if you will excuse me, I'm extremely busy.”  
  
Harry got slowly to his feet, his heart sinking. Another failed visit -his second since the three month mark had passed, and he had once again not succeeded. The door was pointed out to him and he didn't move.  
  
“Can I pay you?” he whispered miserably. “Is that it? Are you waiting for a rich enough bribe?”  
“How rich?” the Head Gaoler asked, his eyebrows raised.  
“A thousand galleons,” Harry breathed.  
“When?”  
“After I've seen him and he passed my personal fitness assessment,” Harry answered caustically.  
  
The wizard stared at him, clearly torn between his desire to keep them apart and to have a hefty chunk of gold in his bank account.  
  
“I'm accompanying you,” he said finally, and Harry nearly fell over.  
  
Money had won him the impossible battle. He blamed his honesty and goodness for not allowing him to think of it before. He was led through a different door to the one he entered in, and he was soon in a dark maze of corridors. Night had fallen whilst he argued with the Head of the prison about admission. The fortress was freezing. Somewhere someone screamed and Harry shivered. They turned into a long hallway with bigger windows than he had previously seen. Even with the extra light the state of the place wasn't improved. They looked to be coming to a dead end when his guide stopped, pulled some keys from a reel on his belt and unlocked the last door on the right.  
  
Harry felt sick. He'd been waiting for three months to see Ron but now that it was there, about to happen, he didn't know what he was going to do, or how he should act. He didn't know what to expect. As the great metal door swung open, however, Harry let out a gasp of shock.  
  
There was a figure on the bed, emaciated and greyish in pallor. Long red hair was in tangles and swamped with grease close to the roots. The man's fingernails and toenails were so overgrown that they were curling, and his eyes were so bloodshot that there was more red than blue. A scraggy beard hid his chin.  
  
“Ron,” he whispered, horrified.  
  
He stepped foot in the cell and noticed the dank smell immediately, followed by an underlying tang of urine. He saw why when he drew closer to the bed – the sheets were stained. Ron himself was stained too, a robe which must once have been lighter completely soiled.  
  
“Ron?” Harry repeated, louder, trying to get Ron's attention. But Ron was not looking at him. Ron was looking down at his hand where his fingers picked at a bloody patch on the back. To Harry's horror, when the hand flexed, he saw a flash of white bones.  
  
Rage grew within him and he rounded on the Head Gaoler. “What the fuck?” he demanded.  
“You wanted to see him,” the Warden said, holding his hands up. “Not my fault if you didn't think about what state he might be in when you did.”  
“Why've you let him... become like...” Harry waved an angry hand around the room.  
“When we try to go near him, he goes berserk,” the man shrugged.  
“Then restrain him!” Harry shouted, his voice echoing down the corridor.  
  
Then he heard a sound which broke his heart. Behind him, Ron had started to cry.  
  
“Please don't cry,” he breathed, throwing himself on his knees in front of his lover. “Ron, please, it's me, Harry? Don't you know me, Ron? It's me.”  
  
Dead blue eyes stared back at him and Harry immediately hated himself. In three months he had not thought of using money, Ron had become the filthy, wild being in front of him. On closer inspection, Harry saw scratch marks on Ron's throat, which he presumed were from the long nails which had gone unclipped.  
  
“I'm s-sorry...” Harry whispered. “I'm so sorry.”  
  
His apology fell on deaf ears and Ron simply stared at him, tears falling down his cheeks. Harry got to his feet again and walked back to the door. His nausea began to roll in his belly at what he had finally been allowed to see.  
  
“I'll come back for you,” he promised Ron, looking over his shoulder. “I'll come back, I promise you.”  
  
The cell door was closed. Harry leant against the windowsill opposite the door. He bit down hard into his lip and inwardly screamed. Never in his worst nightmares had he imagined anything like he had witnessed.  
  
“How can you let people live like that?” he asked aloud, knowing he would not get an answer.  
  
In his mind, he asked how Percy Weasley could bear to allow his own brother to rot away in such a state, for a crime he did not commit.  
  
***  
  
Harry sipped at his tea and took the chance for a sneaky glance over at the man whom he had once counted amongst his greatest enemies. The war had not been kind by any stretch of the imagination to Severus Snape. He had spent best part of the years since trying to recover. Every time that Harry saw him, he felt several twinges of guilt per visit, looking at the man's scarred neck and jaw, and the walking stick he was forced to rely upon to get around.  
  
“I have done as you requested,” Severus said quietly, putting down his own mug of tea. “I found something suitable for your needs, and have started preparing it. It is not a quick solution, however.”  
“How long?” Harry chewed on the inside of his cheek.  
“Two to three weeks. It really depends on what it wants to do.”  
“Can't you hurry it up?”  
“Potter, this is why I never believed for a second that you were even slightly skilled in the art of Potion making.”  
“So that's a no then?”  
  
Harry saw the older wizard take a steadying breath and smirked into his tea.  
  
“Two to three weeks. And even then the Ministry might not approve. All the ingredients are completely legal. But it seems like you may have a more pushing problem to tackle.”  
“Getting him to drink.” Harry sighed. “He... he wasn't himself, Severus.”  
  
He shook his head and tried to keep his mind clear of the emotion which clouded over whenever he thought of Ron's state in prison.  
  
“Did you really think he would be himself?” Severus asked sceptically. “Were you really expecting that you would find the man that you loved so unchanged?”  
“Love,” Harry corrected, frowning with irritation. “Not loved. He's not dead.”  
“From what you told me, Potter, he might as well be.”  
“Don't.” Harry ground his teeth. “He's not dead, and I'm going to get him out of prison even if it kills me.”  
“Harry...” His first name, spoken aloud so very rarely by Severus Snape, was softly murmured. “If Ron were released, he would spend a considerable amount of time in hospital, from what you've told me. The prison has taken hold of him and it will not relinquish him as easily as you might hope.”  
“He's got to be in there somewhere... my Ron.”  
“He may well be. But...”  
“But what?” Harry demanded.  
  
Severus rearranged himself slightly in his armchair and rubbed his chin, almost nervously. It surprised Harry; even after seeing first hand the mortal nature of Severus' body, he still found it hard to attribute human actions and emotions to the man. The thought that he might be nervous of anything made Harry incredulous.  
  
“If you get him out, and if he recovers...” Severus paused, looking at the fire. “Then how do you think he would feel that, because of his relationship with you, he was tossed into a cell to rot and went mad in the process?”  
“I don't... I don't know,” Harry admitted. “He's not always been the King of Rational.”  
“Neither have you, but somehow you're still alive,” Severus pointed out, a wry smirk twisting his lips.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and looked away. “When I get him... we're moving away from everyone. Maybe to another country... not figured it out yet.”  
“Just what he needs, a move away from everything he has ever known. Really, Potter, you're not thinking this through. Familiarity is what he will need if he is to recover.”  
“We were going to buy a house,” Harry admitted. “We'd decided to move out of Grimmauld and get somewhere which belonged jointly to the two of us. He was so happy at the thought of that. He wanted a new start then... and now all he might want is the old again.”  
  
“Only time will tell what Ron wants. If time ever gives him the opportunity to tell you what he wants.”  
“Are you ever optimistic?” Harry muttered.  
“Where has optimism ever got me?” Severus retorted. “My entire life has been filled with disappointment and sadness and then a task which nearly ended in my death. I'm still not convinced that it shouldn't have succeeded.”  
“Don't talk like that.”  
“I'll talk how I want, Potter, this is my house.”  
  
Harry sighed again and drained his cup. He'd come for news of the potion he'd requested that Severus try and find and had got it. There wasn't much point in sitting with the acerbic man who was only going to depress him. Harry acknowledged that he didn't need any further encouragement on that score.  
  
“I know how it feels, remember.” Severus shifted forward in his seat and sat up straight. “To lose the person that you love.”  
“My mother was actually dead,” Harry pointed out quietly. He looked down at his boots. “She was gone.”  
“Because of my own actions. And now your lover is in prison, out of his mind, because of your actions.”  
“If I'd never gone to him... never encouraged him...” Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I'm trying not to blame myself.”  
“But you're failing. I can see that. But this isn't your fault. Ronald Weasley made the decision to engage with you romantically, Potter. I doubt you could have forced him into it. You shouldn't blame yourself for this.”  
“I feel like I've let him down.” Harry bit hard into his bottom lip and knew that he should leave before his emotions and his breakfast landed on Severus' Axminster.  
  
The hand which landed on his shoulder surprised him. They never had bodily contact. Severus had never permitted it. Never had even a handshake passed between them. The hand was long and thin, bony, and stained from years of potion making. It was warm, though, and it rested gently on him.  
  
“I doubt that very much, Harry. Some things are meant to be... and your relationship, for the good and bad it brings, is one of them.”  
  
Harry looked up at him, questioning with his eyes.  
  
“Oh, please, Potter.” Severus laughed. “He was the thing you would miss the most during the Triwizard Tournament. Girlfriends and a sister... and Ronald Weasley. It was clear to me then that you would be lovers at some point. I assumed it was happening during all that time you spent cramped up in a tent together.”  
“If Hogwarts teachers know this stuff, why don't they tell their students? Would have saved a fuck load of heartache.”  
“Language,” Severus scolded, and for a second, he was the formidable Potions Master that Harry remembered. “And if we did tell you, that would be rather too easy. Life and love are battlefields to be conquered, Potter. I have failed at one and barely scraped by in the other. Some people fail in both. You, I think, are lucky enough to win at both. If you keep your head and play this right with the Ministry.”  
  
Harry got up and nodded. “I guess. Thank you, for brewing it. I won't mention your name or anything.”  
“Oh, don't bother about secrecy. They watch me anyway. At the moment I imagine someone has noted your visit to me. The truth will out, it always does. Time has taught me that much. Even when you try to bury something in the very depths of your soul.”  
“Still, I don't want to get you into trouble. Again.”  
“If I cared about that, I would have thrown you out on your ear when you visited the first time asking me to research. I was tempted, but only because you only ever visit me when you want something.”  
“I didn't think you'd want me hanging around!” Harry protested.  
  
Severus rolled his eyes with irritation. “I don't have much company.”  
“I didn't think you'd want it from me. Or Ron...”  
“On the contrary, I have always appreciated your visits. And Weasley, for his faults and brashness, makes a very good cup of tea. So when you release him from prison, and you are both well again, I expect you both here to wait on me hand and foot. I think I earned that right during the war.”  
  
Harry snorted. “If Ron's back to himself, he'll tell you where you can stick that idea.”  
“I very much look forward to hearing him do so,” Severus said pointedly.  
  
***  
Nursing a small glass of whisky, Harry sat in his sitting room with his feet up on the coffee table, something he always told Ron off for doing. He drank a small sip and enjoyed the sound of the ice cubes banging together. On a night like that, Ron should have been sprawled next to him, writing rude words instead of the right answers in the Prophet's crossword. Perhaps they might have had friends round. Maybe they would have gone out for dinner.  
  
It was hard, when he was alone, to not sit and think about all the things he would be doing if Ron were there. He allowed himself to reach out and stroke the empty seat cushion next to him, where Ron's bottom should have been firmly planted. He felt a fool, but he didn't pull his hand away. All he had were Ron's things to keep close to him, and the memories in his head. Even though he had tried to stay optimistic, there was no point in denying that ever since he had finally gained access to Ron in Azkaban, a long two weeks before, his heart had been silently sinking.  
  
Would Ron ever want to come back to him, should he be released? He had told Harry to move on before he had even been sentenced. Ron had known how things were going to go and instead of savouring what little time they'd had left, Harry had focussed on hoping that the hearing would go their way. After Ron had been sentenced, Harry had trained his concentration on finding a way to get Ron out.  
  
Never once had Harry really stopped to think for an extended period of time what his own life would be like if Ron was never released from prison, and their relationship was never allowed to continue due to the law. Tightness claimed his throat then and Harry drank to chase it away. All the whisky did was make it burn even more, but he didn't put the glass down. In fact, as he looked at the bottle next to his feet, he thought that perhaps getting absolutely shit-faced was the way the night should go. He hadn't got drunk since before Ron had been gaoled. The release was tempting, knowing that when he was drunk, Harry wouldn't care if he cried or howled his misery at the house, which was empty but for him.  
  
He reached out and unscrewed the bottle, filling his glass right up to the brim. The ice cubes had melted considerably but he didn't care. He filled his mouth with the burning liquid and swallowed. He gasped for air when it was gone. The rest of the glass went down the same way and Harry re-filled, urged on by the temptation of numbness. If he was drunk, maybe he wouldn't feel. Maybe he wouldn't need Ron like he did when he was sober. When he was sober, all he knew was the reality of the fact that Ron was not there. If he was drunk, perhaps he would forget everything until he woke up, hungover. And he would deal with everything then.  
  
Quickly quaffing down his second glass, he poured a third and toed off his boots. He realised he was wearing a pair of Ron's socks and got rid of them too, suddenly deciding he wanted nothing to do with Ronald Weasley for that night. He kicked the discarded boots and socks beneath the coffee table, out of sight, and knocked back some more whisky. His eyes looked around the room for something to do and saw an old record player which had been in the house and had been too valuable to throw away, but was something that nobody he'd known had wanted. He shuffled over to it. Sirius had shown him how to work it in the summer before his fifth year at Hogwarts. He carefully turned it on and then placed the needle where he had been shown. A crackly sound filled the room, followed by an old waltz. Sirius had told him that his mother had forced him to learn to dance to that music, with all the furniture cleared back against the walls so that he might catch himself a suitable witch to marry and further the Black bloodline.  
  
With the alcohol starting to take hold, Harry found himself swaying in time, imagining what would have happened in life if Sirius had not disobeyed his mother. If he had gone into Slytherin like the rest of his family, and married a pureblood witch and supported his parents' pureblood mania. The thought repulsed Harry and he pulled a face at himself in the mirror above the fire. His father would never have really known Sirius had that happened, they would not have been friends. Harry would have had no loving godfather. Everything else could have been different... his parents could have lived. Perhaps Sirius' fervour was the reason his parents ever joined Dumbledore's Army, and if they had not, maybe they would have been alive to guide him through his life, and support him at that very moment.  
  
“If they'd been alive, maybe I would never have met Ron.”  
  
Harry spoke aloud to himself and tapped his forefinger against the glass he held. He drank from it, thinking on the fact that if he'd had parents to show him how to get onto Platform 9 and ¾, maybe he would never have struck up a friendship with Ron at all. They might have gone months before even sharing a word. Perhaps they wouldn't have liked one another. Harry would have had wealth and happiness, and Ron would have been poor and mediocre in lessons with no real cause for discussion between them. Harry felt guilty as he considered Ron's lack of money and intelligence so rudely. His lover was clever and resourceful, but not academically, like Hermione. He was a fantastic tactician and so loyal that at times Harry had nearly choked on his faithfulness.  
  
“STOP IT!” he shouted at himself. “DON'T THINK ABOUT HIM!”  
  
Violently he chucked back the rest of the whisky and poured another, enjoying the way his head had become light. In attempt to stop his mind from wandering, he knocked back that glass and went straight on to another, keeping on and on until he lost count of what number he was on. He sank to his knees in front of the fire and kept on drinking, not noticing when his eyes began to brim and tears eventually began to streak down his face.  
  
Ron seemed insistent on permeating his mind. He was there in everything Harry tried to think about and the drink wasn't chasing him away.  
  
“Stop it,” Harry begged finally, shaking his head. He reached out for the bottle and was stunned and angry to find that it was empty. “For fuck's sake,” he shouted, and with an overarm throw flung the bottle at the wall opposite.  
  
It smashed satisfyingly and Harry stared at it as the glass broke. Individual shards caught the light as they flew and sparkled. For good measure, he made sure his glass was empty and then threw that too. As it broke, pressure in his chest which he had not previously noticed eased. Inspired, he jumped to his feet, looking for something else to throw, something else to break like he and Ron had been broken.  
  
Before he knew it, he was hurling everything around the room – soft furnishings he ripped open so that the stuffing flew everywhere. He chucked a vase across the room so that it smashed into the wall and followed it up with a lamp. Destruction reigned all around him and he stood there, panting, looking for his next victim, when his eyes alighted on the mirror. He tore it from the wall with difficulty, grunting with the strain of the weight of it. He ripped half a sheet of wallpaper down in the process, not caring.  
  
“This fucking place,” he shouted, staggering slightly under the weight of the mirror.  
  
The room was spinning and he didn't care. With a great heave he slung the mirror into the wall and froze to listen to the cracking glass, the shatter, the tinkle of it all as it fell to the floor. The frame fell to the floor with a huge bang and made him jump, and, with it, brought reality smack back into Harry's face.  
  
He stared with horror through blurry eyes at what he'd done to their living room. He looked down and found his hands bleeding in several places, cut during his tirade. Ungracefully he slumped to the floor, holding his injured fingers close to his body. He sat amongst the glass, heart thudding so fast that he thought it might give out at any moment. Only then did he recognise the warm wetness which had drenched his cheeks and dirtied his glasses. Only then did he let himself bury his face in the back of the torn sofa, and really cry.  
  
***  
  
The sound of his name being called jerked Harry awake. He was stiff from, he saw, lying on the floor all night. When he looked around, he took in the sight of what he had done the evening before. His stomach felt so precarious that he fought away a burp which was rising to the surface, sure that it would turn into vomit.  
  
“Harry!” His name was called again in a female voice which he didn't recognise.  
“Harry mate, where are you? Are you okay?” A deeper voice sounded. Harry's heart soared, because it sounded like Ron, but it couldn't be Ron because Ron was why he had smashed up the living room.  
  
“And myself,” he whispered, looking down at his cut hands.  
  
With a groan, he managed to heave himself to his feet using the back of the sofa, each of the tiny cuts on his palms and fingers starting to throb as he exerted pressure on them. The room was completely trashed. Harry noticed the empty whisky bottle in front of the dead fire and moaned again.  
  
“There you are!” The man's voice came again. “We were worried-”  
  
Charlie stopped speaking as soon as he got sight of the living room, and of Harry, and his eyes widened.  
  
“What the fuck happened? Did someone break in? Are you okay?”  
“I'm fine,” Harry said, numbness creeping through his veins, tempered with shame. “I... I had bit of a...”  
“Oh my goodness!”  
“Hermione?”  
“What've you done to yourself?” she asked in horror, stepping up to him and taking in her face.  
  
All Harry could see was her – big haired, incredibly tanned from her months in Australia with her parents.  
  
“You're bleeding!” she cried, reaching up to touch his temple. Harry was surprised when her fingers came away coated in blood.  
  
He looked down at his bare feet, all around which lay shattered glass. He had woken up with his head on the floor, meaning he had slumped in the night and cut his face.  
  
“I got drunk,” he said quietly. “And angry... and...”  
  
He gestured helplessly around him.  
  
“You go and sort Harry out, I'll clean this lot up,” Charlie said, pulling out his wand.  
  
Harry allowed Hermione to guide him carefully out of the sitting room by the arm, still more shocked to see her at all than to say anything.  
  
“I hadn't heard from you in weeks, I was worried,” Hermione explained, as they started up the stairs. “There hadn't been any owls.”  
“I've been writing to you twice a week.”  
“I never got the letters, Harry. I desperately wanted to come back to see you, to go and see Ron, but I had that bout of dragonpox and they wouldn't let me travel... you know the law! And when there were no letters... oh, Harry, I've been so worried and I find you like this? How's Ron, have you seen him?”  
  
Harry's head began to thump as her anxiety took hold within his own body. Ron. The night before, he had been thinking terrible things, trying to push the memory of Ron away. He nearly retched with disgrace. Hermione steadied him with her hands. They shuffled along the landing to his bedroom, which Hermione entered without ceremony and sat him on the bed.  
  
She disappeared and Harry could hear the chink of glass vials from the bathroom, along with running water. When she came back, Hermione was laden with healing aides, and she sat down beside him and immediately began cleaning the wound on his temple.  
  
“They must have been watching my letters,” Harry said quietly, the revelation not really surprising him. “That's why you weren't getting them. I've been writing about everything, and I wrote to tell you that Ron's... Ron's not doing well in there, Hermione.”  
  
She said nothing but continued with her task of cleaning his injuries. Feeling dizzy, Harry used his magic to open a window to let in some fresh air.  
  
“Snape's working on a potion,” he went on, hearing the lifeless tone of his voice. “That's like veritaserum but isn't. We need to convince the Ministry to do a test on Ron under it... but he's too far gone. He didn't know me when I went to visit him, Hermione... and if we leave it much longer... maybe he won't ever know me again.”  
  
Chucking the cotton wool she was holding in the bowl of water, Hermione wrapped her arms around him. Harry leant into her and closed his eyes. She smelt just the same as she had when they were teenagers – comforting and warm.  
  
“Are you ever going to have things easy, hmm?” she whispered, squeezing him tighter. “You deserve a normal, happy life, Harry, and it seems like you're never going to get one.”  
“We were going to buy a house,” he provided, as if it was proof that he really _did_ want a normal life, but everything kept getting in the way.  
“I know you were. I had to go and find Charlie when you wouldn't answer your door... but I didn't know he wasn't living at home any more, so I ended up at The Burrow being talked at by Molly. She told me everything in the space of about forty seconds. I just thanked her and left again. I didn't want to stay and listen to her maligning Ron.”  
“I can't believe she doesn't believe him.”  
“Neither can I, Harry.”  
  
Hermione started work on his hands and Harry stayed silent, watching her methodical work and trying not to hiss as she cleansed the deeper cuts.  
  
“You've really gone to town here, haven't you?” she asked sadly. “And the living room is completely ruined.”  
“Magic can fix it.”  
“Who's going to fix what's in here?” she reached out and prodded over his heart. Harry didn't answer her.  
  
After several minutes of potions and an oily cream, Hermione sighed and banished everything back to the bathroom. “There's nothing more I can do on those. Here.” She handed him two potions. “A hangover cure, and some sleeping draught. You look awful, Harry. You should get some rest. Charlie and I will stay here until you wake up.”  
“How long are you here for?” Harry asked.  
“As long as you need me,” Hermione promised him.  
  
Relieved, Harry crawled up over the bed and got in. Hermione pulled the curtains for him and then left the room, her footsteps blissfully quiet for his pounding head. Harry uncorked the two vials and swallowed them one after the other, and waited for peace to come.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Six (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, angst, severe neglect, implied recurrent non-consensual sex, suicidal ideation and acts.  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~5,121  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes. >> Let go.

**Chapter Six**  
  
  
The door slammed shut and Ron folded in on himself, fingers digging into his upper arms so tightly he knew they would leave bruises. The guard had left him alone whilst he'd been truly out of it, and Ron didn't know how long that had been. Nobody had told him when it started, and the next thing he'd known he'd woken up feeling surprisingly light and fresh. He wasn't a fool, he knew that the depression had claimed him so entirely that he had simply stopped functioning. Someone had taken care of his physical hygiene and his hand was bandaged from where he had ripped at the skin. Ron remembered that because of the pain involved.  
  
But being lucid had meant a return of the guard and his old entertainment. Ron rolled onto his back and felt a throbbing from low in his bowels. He winced as he sat up in the complete darkness of his cell. It was cleaner than he remembered. Someone had been in whilst he was under. It made no never mind to him.  
  
He got up and climbed onto the bed so that he could look out of his window. Only then did he realise that somebody had boarded it up. The lack of a chill gave him the answer as to why the window had been taken away, but he was angry. His view was gone. When he got sick of his cell he could always look out of the bars and watch the sea and the seagulls, and now there was nothing but discoloured wet wood, which stank. Angrily Ron punched the wall and bit on his lip to keep his scream in as his already injured hand protested. He tasted tangy iron and knew he had bitten through the skin. He didn't care.  
  
Like a caged animal he began to prowl his cell, looking at every aspect of it – the walls, the door, the bed, the boarded up window, the damp-stained ceiling, the toilet, the food hatch. It was all hell, and he had been trapped in the hell of it for months. Even retreating into his mind hadn't got him out of it. He hadn't been convinced that anything would happen there, nobody seemed to have any sympathy and he knew there was an inmate on the fourth floor of the prison who regularly smeared the walls of his cell with his shit in his madness and never got so much as an extra shower.  
  
“It's the only way,” he breathed, looking at the thin sheets of his bed.  
  
Nobody cared, and he knew that because, surely, if someone cared, they would have realised the risk those sheets might present. That any prisoner with an ounce of noddle would see that all they would have to do would be to rip the sheet up and thread it together to make a perfectly adequate noose.  
  
It was that task to which Ron set himself to, sitting cross legged on the bed, eyes narrowed in concentration. The room was so dark and his fingers were stiff, they fumbled and dropped the threads several times, but he kept at it. He didn't hurry. The guard had come after dinner had been served and nobody ever bothered to check on them after the trays had been removed. He took his time, labouring over the strength of the fabric. He tried to guess what his own weight was, taking into account all that he had lost since entering the prison, but it was impossible, not having really known how much he weighed beforehand. At last, when he reached the end of the threads, he put his hands at a natural distance apart on the rope and tugged. It held fast. Satisfied, Ron got up, knees clicking and hips aching, and stood beneath his window. He reached up and tied the end of the rope to one of the bars, and then tied the other end in a loose noose.  
  
He let it hang from the bars and stared at it. It was a way out.  
  
 _A coward's way out..._ his mind taunted him.  
  
“The only way out,” he breathed.  
  
Even though he had woken up feeling relatively normal, Ron had decided on his course of action almost immediately. The feelings of normality and relative wellness would not last if he stayed in Azkaban. The darkness would return and be worse, and worse, until he died a tormented death in its hands. Ron saw the noose as speeding up the process. He would never survive in prison, and he was innocent. There were plenty of people who might need his cell, just like someone might need a hospital bed, and unlike him, they would deserve their place in hell.  
  
Licking his broken lip, Ron walked to the corner of his bed and pulled out his marker stone. Over the days it had grown dangerously sharp and he had been saving for just this moment. He held his breath and dragged the knife-like point vertically up the main vein at his wrist. Blood welled up immediately and trickled sideways down his arm. Calmly, he cut the other wrist in the same fashion, before adding extra cuts to the crooks of his elbows and all along the veins in his forearms.  
  
Awash with blood, he turned back to the noose and stepped into it. There was no executioner there for him, and Ron was glad. He was his own executioner and he pulled the noose tight around his throat.  
  
He had read about Muggle executions in a book of History that Hermione had owned. Normally the victim would say some kind of prayer or repent for the sins which had sent them to their death. Ron had committed no sin that he knew of. None but the supposed sin of loving another man, whom he cherished, whom he adored. A man who was outside, longing for his return. With his act, Ron felt that he would set Harry free. He would move on, find another man, and be happy away from Percy and his judgement.  
  
He thought perhaps that was his last redeeming task. He leant forward, testing the strength of his rope, and purposefully took his legs out from underneath him.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“I want to come back to work,” Harry repeated, looking Kingsley square in the eye. “I've had enough of moping around at home. I'm still trying to help Ron but I've got to wait.”  
“And you won't tell me what it is that you're doing to help?” Kingsley tried again.  
“There's no point until I'm in a position to put it into practice,” Harry said. He shrugged apologetically. “I don't want to hear no now, Kingsley.”  
  
The older wizard sighed and leant back in his chair.  
  
“If I let you come back with diminished responsibility and on reduced hours, would that be of any help?”  
“Huge help,” Harry promised, nodding eagerly. “I just need to get my teeth into something, Kingsley.” _Something which has a chance of coming to fruition..._ he admitted inwardly.  
  
“Well I think we can manage that. You can work closely with me, if you like. I know before all this happened it was something we talked about and you seriously wanted to do.”  
“I still do!”  
“You sound like an eager puppy, it's hard to say no to you.” Kingsley laughed.  
“Can I have a pay rise then?” Harry grinned and gave him a wink.  
“Cheeky little-”  
  
A knock on the door cut him off. An Auror hurried inside without being summoned, a letter in his hand, which he thrust at Kingsley. He didn't wait for a response.  
  
Frowning, Kingsley opened the letter and held it up to the light so that he could read it. Harry was about to make a joke about getting some glasses when he saw the man's dark skin blanch. Kingsley's mouth was slightly open and his eyes, when they turned to Harry, were full of pity.  
  
“What?” Harry asked cautiously, alarm bells ringing in his head.  
“Harry... I don't know what to say.”  
“Tell me what the fucking letter says,” he said.  
“Ron... Ron was found in his cell this morning. He attempted to take his own life.”  
  
If the world had fallen out from underneath him at that moment, Harry wouldn't have noticed. He was already free-flying, face-first, into oblivion.  
  
“Harry, we must get to the hospital.”  
“Why? To get to his body before the fucking vultures?” Harry mumbled.  
“The fool who wrote this letter didn't think to include whether he succeeded in the act.” Kingsley threw the parchment down on his desk. “Come on. I have a direct channel into St. Mungo's from here.”  
  
Harry didn't pay much attention to anything else that Kingsley said. He clumsily took a handful of Floo Powder and threw it in the grate, climbing in when the flames were safely green. He dumbly looked at Kingsley for instruction. He repeated the destination without really hearing it. He could have been going to Timbuktu for all he knew. Only when his feet landed at the other end and he staggered into a sterile smelling environment did he guess he had arrived at the right place. Kingsley arrived hot on his heels and took him by the elbow, practically dragging him along the stones which paved the corridors. They seemed to be in a basement of sorts. The air was slightly stale.  
  
“This is where fatalities and prisoners are brought for the examination,” Kingsley explained. “Normally I end up here if I am called to St Mungo's, so we decided it was just easier if there was a direct channel from my office.”  
“So that's how you always beat us here,” Harry mused aloud.  
  
Suddenly the whole situation seemed far too surreal. One minute he had been begging for his job back, ready to put his passion for Ron's case to one side whilst he gave himself a small break, and the next he was underneath a huge hospital, and his lover might well be dead.  
  
“Shacklebolt,” a Healer called out, calling them back to a room they had raced past. “In here. Ah, you have Mr Potter with you... an owl was dispatched...”  
“A fucking owl?” Harry asked with disbelief. “An owl?”  
  
The Healer shifted uncomfortably on his feet and Kingsley stepped into the room.  
  
“Prepare yourself, Mr Potter... this will not be easy,” the Healer advised.  
“Is he alive?” Harry asked the question, knowing that if the answer was negative he would not be able to enter the room.  
“Just,” the Healer said sadly. “It will be touch and go. There was a lot of blood loss, damage to his windpipe, starvation of oxygen to the brain-”  
“I think we can leave the details until later, don't you?” Kingsley interrupted. “Harry, get in here. Now.”  
  
Fingers shaking, Harry braced himself to cross the threshold. Inside, the room was like all the other hospital rooms he had been in since entering the wizarding world. It was fresh and clean, regulated by a temperature spell. Ron was lying in the centre of one of the regular beds. A slice of anger shot through Harry as he saw the foam restraints shackling Ron to the frame of his bed.  
  
“I think we can dispense of these, don't you?” Kingsley asked the Healer over Harry's head, as if reading his mind. “He's hardly in a state to escape.”  
“We were simply following protocol. You are the head of the law, however. Remove them if you wish.”  
  
Kingsley did just that, and after he had freed Ron's hands, he picked one of them up and seemed to try and warm it in between his own. “He's freezing,” the black wizard commented.  
  
“His temperature is low because if we make him hotter, his heart will beat faster and he simply doesn't have the energy for that. His temperature is being monitored and will systematically rise as his condition improves. He will warm up.”  
  
Harry stood like a statue, letting them talk over the top of him, staring at Ron's body. He was in better condition than when he had last seen him.  
  
“Who... who sorted him out. When I saw him a few weeks ago... he had a beard and his hair was matted... his fingernails were curly.”  
“He came to us like this,” the Healer said.  
“You saw him?” Kingsley asked, clearly irritated.  
  
Harry swallowed on his dry throat.  
  
“Jones, give us a minute, will you?” Kingsley requested.  
“I will wait outside.”  
  
When the door was closed, Kingsley looked to Harry for an explanation.  
  
“I was desperate,” Harry breathed. “I went to beg the Head Gaoler and it just came to me that there was one thing I hadn't tried. Bribery.”  
“And he took it?”  
“Would have done anything for it, I think. But Ron was just... he was so thin, so uncared for. They must have done this because I visited... because I'd seen just how ill he'd become.”  
“Ill?”  
“Mentally ill,” Harry dipped his eyes and looked at the shape of Ron's feet under the blankets. “He had the same look in his eyes as when we started thinking about our relationship... this dead stare, and he didn't recognise me.”  
  
“In the name of Merlin, why on earth didn't you come to me? I could have done something, Harry!”  
“I didn't know what to do!” Harry cried. “I was scared that you would just leave him there... I felt I had to get him out of there on my own.”  
“Except you haven't been on your own, have you?” Kingsley sighed. “Someone's been helping you.”  
“Where they can,” Harry confirmed.  
  
He finally rounded the bed and touched his fingers to the back of Ron's bandaged hand.  
  
“Your problem has always been, Harry, that you think you have to do everything alone. Perhaps this attempt would have been stopped if you'd come to me.”  
“Don't!” Harry shouted. “Don't tell me he nearly died because of me. I was just doing what I thought was right – and if he was your partner, if you loved him like I love him, then maybe you would understand. I was doing everything I thought was right to save him.”  
  
Kingsley stared at him for a good long moment, and then nodded in concession.  
  
“I don't know how you have borne these past months, Harry. I could not have.”  
“Neither could Ron.” Harry heard his voice crack with pain. “And now he's...”  
  
He found he couldn't continue and simply looked at Ron's face. He could see the swollen, purple flesh where Ron had clearly tried to hang himself. His cheeks were puffy and swollen also. There were bandages covering the entirety of his forearms and the crooks of his elbows.  
  
“He tried to do it thoroughly,” he breathed, reaching to stroke Ron's cheek.  
“I need to move some mountains,” Kingsley said thoughtfully. “Ron is now out of Azkaban and I intend to keep him out. However, to do that, I need to make sure that nobody knows he is here that would want to send him back. But you must have people that you would like here with you, to help you?”  
“Charlie and George,” Harry said immediately, not taking his eyes off Ron. “And Hermione.”  
“I can't just bring her back from Australia-”  
“She's back in the country. Staying at Grimmauld.”  
“Godric, Harry, have you told me _anything_ in the last three months?”  
“I didn't think that it was important... she didn't want anyone to know...”  
“Right. Well. You stay here. You will have a guard on the door but that's to be expected, and it will be hospital staff and not prison staff. I will personally select an Auror I can trust to come and stand guard too. I will call on those you have requested and send them here with the Auror I choose. I imagine you will want to put Ron in his own things?”  
  
Harry stared at him dumbly, wondering how a man so important and clever could remember even the little things, like the fact that Ron might like to be in his own clothes.  
  
“That would be good,” Harry said quietly, ashamed of his own apparent ineptness.  
“I also need to find out why he was brought here. The guards of Azkaban are not known for their sympathy... normally, if a prisoner is found nearly dead, they simply allow nature to take its course, something I have been arguing against since the war ended.”  
“So why's Ron here?” Harry frowned.  
“That's exactly what I want to know. Something's going on, if you ask me. And I want to know what.”  
  
Harry nodded and said nothing further. Kingsley paused for a moment longer and then left the hospital room, closing the door with a quiet click behind him. Finally alone with Ron, Harry found himself at a loss to know what to do or say.  
  
“Hey,” he muttered finally. He stood on tiptoes to lean over the bed and kiss Ron's cheek. It was too cool. “You're out now. I'm never letting you go back. Ever. I'll steal you if I fucking have to.”  
  
Ron did not answer and Harry laughed at his own stupidity. He brushed some hair back from Ron's brow and noticed how wild it had become since his sentence started. Whoever had groomed Ron had only washed the hair and shaved the beard. Harry looked to see whether the gouges in his neck had been healed and they seemed to have been left alone to do their own bidding. Harry found he couldn't tear his eyes away from the deep welt the rope had left in Ron's throat.  
  
“I'm sorry you were so desperate,” he whispered. “I would have been. Any of us would have been.”  
  
He kissed his cheek again and then stepped back. There was a chair next to the bed and Harry settled himself in it, knowing he would not be leaving the hospital room for a long time.  
  
***  
  
“He looks older,” George commented, staring intently at his brother's face.  
“So would you if you'd been what he's been through,” Charlie pointed out, from the other side of the bed.  
  
Harry had let them commandeer the bed from him and was taking the opportunity to close his eyes for a moment, leaning back in the uncomfortable hospital chair. Ron was safe in the hands of Charlie and George if he was safe in the hands of anyone. Finding himself shattered, Harry was grateful for their presence, that someone else could mind Ron whilst he tried to gather his thoughts together.  
  
A knock on the door interrupted their peaceful existence.  
  
“Harry.” Kingsley stuck his head in. “Can I have a word with you? And the Healers want to do another examination so they'll need some privacy.”  
  
Charlie straightened up and patted his pockets. “I could do with some good strong coffee. George?”  
“Only if it has something stronger in it than coffee,” the twin answered, with a sad look at Ron's silent form. “See you in a bit, Harry.”  
  
They left, and Harry saw the Healers into the room first and then left to join Kingsley in the corridor.  
  
“Not here,” the wizard said, and led him to a door three down from Ron's room, and into what turned out to be a storage cupboard, filled with magical mess remover, mops and buckets.  
  
“What've you found out?” Harry asked immediately, folding his arms over his chest.  
  
He felt much more alert, and more able to cope with the situation than he had at first. He pushed his glasses further up on his nose and waited.  
  
“I found out why he was transferred here.”  
“And?”  
  
Kingsley hesitated, clearly trying to decide whether Harry could cope with the new he had to give.  
  
“Tell me,” Harry insisted.  
“It would seem that whilst he was imprisoned... Ron was subject to abuse from someone who was guarding him. When the others noticed that he had seemingly given up the will to live, shortly before your secret visit, they called a healer to come and examine Ron... who immediately noticed damage to Ron's body.”  
“And?” Harry ground the word out, trying to fight the urge to punch something.  
  
“Well it would seem that Healer lodged a complaint that he was concerned about the welfare of prisoners in the institution, and when Ron was found half-dead, considering he had been noted by the healer and an official complaint raised, the staff were scared and referred him here immediately.”  
“Do they know who did it? What did they do?”  
“If the staff at the prison know, they're keeping schtum. But they know that... well, this isn't easy to say, Harry, and it'll be damned harder to hear. Ron was subject to multiple occurrences of rape, if the testimony of other prisoners on his wing are correct. They heard it happen, twice or three times a week from a certain point on in his incarceration.”  
  
Harry's knees began to knock and he braced himself against a wall for safety. He didn't know what he felt most – anger, pity, sorrow or horror.  
  
“No wonder he went off the deep end,” he breathed, squeezing his eyes shut. “He's never been all that comfortable with his sexuality. It took him a long time to admit what he was and for our relationship to move onto a physical place...”  
  
He blushed, realising what he had just said to the man who was in charge of both of them.  
  
“I will be putting right the wrongs which have been done to Ron,” Kingsley promised. “I can't promise to get his conviction rescinded, but I can promise to make sure that no prisoners are ever raped again.”  
“Can you promise to heal Ron when he wakes up traumatised?” Harry spat, suddenly finding himself angry with the messenger. “Can you do that? Can you make it so that he'll never remember what happened to him?”  
“Any wizard could do that, Harry,” the wizard said calmly. “But it's Ron's choice to forget and not yours to make for him.”  
“So what are you actually going to do for him, hmm?” Harry demanded. “What are you going to do for _Ron?_ ”  
  
Kingsley shrugged. “Everything I can, but I can promise nothing.”  
“What can actually happen?”  
“Well, we could petition for a 'removal to hospital' Order, which would mean that he would still technically be serving a sentence but in a medical setting which would provide more leniency in terms of visitors and a more comfortable setting for him.”  
“Is that it? What about getting him off?”  
“Harry, a Wizengamot isn't going to take a suicide attempt as a reason to revoke a sentence. They're more likely to view it as an admission of guilt which Ron has buckled under the strain of.”  
“He's innocent,” Harry cried.  
“They don't care what he is, Harry.” Kingsley shook his head.  
“If I proved it, though... if I proved that Ron didn't kill the baby, would they let him out?”  
“It would have to be solid evidence.”  
“But if I had it?”  
“Then they would be forced to reconsider their verdict.”  
“I'm going to prove it,” Harry assured him. “If I die trying.”  
“Well, while you're doing that, I've managed to secure Ron a room in this hospital for as long as the Healers deem it necessary with a secrecy clause on the staff.”  
“And if the Healers say he needs continued hospital treatment?”  
“They're more likely to recommend a stay in one of the psychiatric units. There are a few in the country.”  
“But I could visit him?”  
“Family participation is often viewed as essential for recovery.”  
  
Harry breathed a little sigh of relief. If it wasn't Azkaban, he could live with it.  
  
***  
  
“I know he enjoys a good sleep, but this is ridiculous,” Charlie moaned, throwing away a copy of the Quidditch magazine he had been thumbing through.  
  
Harry made a hum of agreement, putting all his concentration into aiming the shaving spell he was using on Ron. Ron had been asleep for days and none of the Healers seemed particularly worried, but the silence was frustrating. At first, Harry had been content just to look at him, happy to see him. Now he needed more.  
  
“He's got to wake up soon,” he said finally, leaning back and surveying his work. Shaving spells were one of the greatest creation of wizard kind in his opinion. He loved them. “His body surely can't need any more?”  
  
Charlie made a face and started twiddling his thumbs.  
  
“I've been thinking,” Harry said, reaching out to card his fingers through the top of Ron's hair. “I had to let the house we wanted go when all this happened. I didn't want to move without him. So I'm still in Grimmauld and it's getting shittier by the day. D'you fancy moving in?”  
“I don't want to get in your way.”  
“You won't. It's so big we could go for days and never see one another. George is welcome too, if he wants... I know that stinking flat can't be good for him.”  
“I'll talk to him,” Charlie said, sounding interested.  
“Don't think I'm being selfless,” Harry said to him, laughing without mirth. “I just know that if I ever get Ron home, I'm going to need help.”  
  
Charlie snorted but didn't say anything. Harry sighed as he looked at Ron's sleeping form.  
  
“Just wake up,” he snapped suddenly, his temper getting the better of him. “I've waited months for you but I didn't want to re-enact Sleeping fucking Beauty, Ron!”  
“Eh?” Charlie asked.  
“Oh, a princess put to sleep by wicked stepmother, awoken only by a kiss from her Prince Charming.”  
“Have you tried it?”  
“Tried what?” Harry asked thickly.  
“Giving him a kiss?”  
“Not on the lips,” Harry muttered, mortified.  
  
***  
  
“I thought you hated the hospital?” Harry asked, full surprise. He got to his feet and rubbed his eyes.  
  
It was five in the morning and he hadn't expected Severus to bother visiting at all. He had spent yet another night in the cramped chairs by Ron's bed, waiting for anything Ron could give him.  
  
“I thought you would want this as soon as it was completed.” Severus pulled a package in a moleskin wrap out of his cloak. “It's completely viable. I tested it on myself. I tried to force myself to lie and I couldn't. I simply couldn't get the words out.”  
  
Harry took it gratefully from him and handled it like it was precious porcelain.  
  
“Inside are instructions on the brewing, every single ingredient. I imagine, if they consent, they will run their own tests on it first. If I were in charge, that's what I would do.”  
“Thank you. At least now I have somewhere to go when he wakes up... somewhere to start.”  
“How long has it been now?” Severus asked, moving to stand by the side of the bed where he could look down into Ron's face.  
“Too fucking long,” Harry swore. “I'm starting to get angry at him, and that's not fair, but I can't help it. I can't take the silence any more.”  
“You were never very good at patiently waiting.”  
“I just want to hear his voice.”  
“You must give him time, Potter. The human mind is very good at protecting itself, when all is said and done. He broke down in prison because, whatever outer presentation it caused, his mind simply went on holiday from reality.”  
“Well it didn't save him, when he woke up he still tried to kill himself.”  
“Potter, bitterness has no place in this hospital room.”  
“I'm not bitter!”  
  
Severus merely stared at him with raised eyebrows. Harry blushed under his scrutiny and looked away.  
  
“I just want him to wake up and talk to me,” he said finally. “I just want him to know I'm here.”  
“He will know. There are some things even self-induced sedation can't block out.”  
“They're saying when he wakes up it's more and more likely they'll transfer him to a psychiatric unit.”  
  
Something in Severus' face darkened and Harry waited.  
  
“They tried to lock me in one of those infernal places,” Severus said quietly. “Because I refused to talk in the first months.”  
“Did they?”  
“I refused, naturally. But Ron... being a prisoner I doubt he will have the liberty to refuse. I just hope because of you they give him a comfortable one and not one which is simply the next step down from Azkaban.”  
  
Harry swallowed. “I don't want him to go, really. I don't see why he can't be treated here.”  
“Because they moved all of the mental health wards off-site after the war, you know that. It was deemed too cramped, no natural sunlight or fresh air.”  
“But he's not mentally ill, he's just been affected by what's been done to him.”  
“Harry, he's still mentally ill. A suicide attempt is a very serious thing-”  
“D'you seriously think I don't know that?!” Harry exclaimed. “When I think of how easily he could have succeeded... fuck... I don't know what I would do without him, Severus. I actually don't know how I could _live_.”  
  
“Harry, your love might not be enough to bring him out of whatever he has suffered in prison,” Severus said. “You need to be prepared for that.”  
  
Harry found himself shivering then, teetering on the edge of tears. After his disastrous night with the bottle of whisky, he'd sworn off tears, but there they were, hot and thickening his throat.  
  
“I will go. Please keep me updated on his condition. And... if, after he wakes, you need my brewing assistance again, don't hesitate to owl for me.”  
“I won't.”  
  
Severus nodded to him and left through the guarded door. Harry allowed himself a brief moment of weakness and let his fingers shake. Finally he put them on top of Ron's own. He held them so tightly his knuckles bleached white. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Seven (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, angst, severe neglect, historical non-consensual sex, mention of suicidal ideation and acts.  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~5,495  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes. >> Get back on the Merry-go-Round...

  
** Chapter Seven **   


  
  
  
He thought nothing of the pressure until a pained moan came out of Ron's chapped lips.  
  
“Ron?” he whispered, putting his face close. “Ron, can you hear me? Are you awake?”  
  
The responding moan made no sense, but Harry saw his lips trying to move.  
  
“Shh,” he whispered. “I'm here, Ron. I'm here. You're safe.”  
  
He thought he might vomit when Ron's eyes finally opened, slowly, with fluttering lids.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Ron didn't know how to feel. All at once there was anger that his attempt had failed, happiness because he was out of that hell, sheer joy because Harry was holding his hand, and fear, because he didn't know what was going to happen.  
  
Harry was holding onto him like he might be torn away at any moment. Although he appreciated the touches, it frightened Ron that Harry was so fearful. The thought of going back to Azkaban made his empty stomach turn. He knew that if he returned, he would simply try and try again to kill himself until he succeeded.  
  
“I love you,” Harry whispered into his ear.  
  
Ron wanted to reply that he loved Harry back, very much, but his throat was dry and his tongue wouldn't work. Water had not helped. Harry said he'd been told that his throat had sustained damage in the attempt and that was why it hurt. Ron also attributed his throbbing head to the same.  
  
Healers had come and gone, examined him, plugged him with potions and made him drink. He and Harry were currently alone, but they would return at any moment.  
  
“Ron... I want to tell you something, but I don't want to upset you. But I want to tell you before the Healers tell you.”  
  
Ron tried to communicate with his eyes, asking Harry to continue.  
  
“We know what happened to you in there. We know what they did to you.”  
  
Lowering his eyes to the blankets covering his body, Ron couldn't help the way his cheeks began to burn.  
  
“You've been so brave,” Harry murmured in his ear and Ron shuddered at the damp heat tickling his skin.  
  
He couldn't bring himself to pull away from the brunet, though. Harry had waited for him, stayed faithful. He had been campaigning for release and visiting rights and everything under the sun, it seemed. Harry had not given up and hung himself, as Ron had.  
  
“I've got something, too... which might help your case. Keep you out of prison or a mental institution or wherever they try and put you.”  
  
Harry was stroking his hair. Ron liked it, but it wasn't helping his headache. With all the strength he had he reached up and pushed Harry's hand away. An awkward silence settled between them. To soften it, Ron did the only thing he could really do, and pressed a kiss to the nearest part of Harry that he could reach. It felt so good to smell him again, to have him near. Ron had denied himself the very memory of such acts in prison, but they were real again, and he almost couldn't believe it.  
  
“I love you,” Harry repeated.  
  
Ron licked his lips, glad he had no voice to answer back. The words would have grated in his throat. He was afraid that the ability to love had been thrashed out of him by hell.  
  
***  
  
When Ron surfaced next, it was to the sound of shouting outside his hospital room door. Harry was no longer holding his hand, but signs of his recent presence were there. There was a blanked crumpled in one of the plastic chairs and a half-empty cup of tea. It was only then that Ron noticed a second coat over over another chair, and a third slung over the end of his bed. He concentrated, trying to push through the medicated fogginess to hear who was doing all the yelling. They were hurting his head, and the sound was magnified by their buried position within the hospital. Ron could feel the weight of it bearing down on him, almost as if he was buried alive within a tomb, already under the earth. He had been near the top of Azkaban, where at least he could breathe. The very room seemed to suffocate him in the hospital.  
  
Throwing back the blankets, Ron put shaky legs over the side of the bed and winced as his bare feet touched the flagstones. His knees were painful as he stood up, bracing one hand on the mattress. Everything hurt. He thought he had known aches and pains during the war, but they were nothing compared to the gnawing agony he now felt.  
  
With shuffling movements, like an old man, he moved to the end of the bed, each step mortifyingly slow for a youth in their mid-twenties. Only a determination to get those outside the door to shut up kept him going. He felt a trickle of sweat on his temple and suddenly realised that he was hot, his temperature soaring with the effort of moving. His fingers were shaking as he locked them around the ring which served as a door handle. He twisted the lock and pulled the wood towards him; it was light, and nearly knocked him off his feet as it slammed into his shoulder.  
  
The shouting abruptly stopped and several faces turned to look at him, expressions turning from angry to aghast, and Ron felt all traces of heat leave him as his face paled. He took in the crowd and wished he'd never bothered to get up, that instead of freely opening the door he had chosen to barricade it instead.  
  
Harry was there, his cheeks ruddy with fury, and the glint of curly red hair and a shaggy mop of the same shade highlighted Charlie, and George, wearing almost comically similar expressions of anger. The tall black form of his ex-boss, Kingsley Shacklebolt, positioned in the middle of the two opposing groups, was authoritative.  
  
The other group was made up Aurors, some of whom Ron recognised, the Head Gaoler from Azkaban, and the chair of the Wizengamot who had presided over the farce of a trial which had sent Ron to prison in the first place.  
  
Around the central groups there were Healers in their pastel robes, all of whom looked stressed and borderline frightened. Every single one of them stared at Ron as he swayed on the threshold, wearing only his favourite pyjama bottoms and t-shirt, the one which said 'Cannons Til I die' in faded print.  
  
“Does he fucking look like he can take going back to prison?” George demanded suddenly, breaking the silence in a way that only he could. “Look at him. One sneeze and he'd pop his fucking clogs. You can't have him. No. Absolutely fucking not.”  
  
Ron would have laughed if he'd had the energy. His brother was standing there with his arms folded, wearing a petulant expression as if he wasn't shouting at the top wizarding law enforcers in the United Kingdom.  
  
“What's going on?” he asked nervously, forgetting that his voice had failed him.  
  
It came out in a low croak which he didn't recognise. It wobbled on every word and petered to nothing by the end.  
  
“Nothing,” one of the Healers said, pushing everyone aside and coming to stand by him. His hands gently touched to Ron's arm but it was too much, and he jumped, leaping backwards, shaking. A flash of understanding went through the Healer's eyes. “I'm sorry, Mr Weasley. My thoughts were of keeping you safe. You'd better get back into bed. Come on.”  
  
He gestured with his hands, which Ron appreciated, and allowed the Healer to guide him back to his bed without any contact being made between them. The Healer waited for Ron to settle himself before asking him to lean forward, which Ron did, and the man arranged his pillows so it was easy for him to sit up.  
  
“There, lean back now. Can I have your arm?”  
  
Ron turned his forearm upwards and rested it on his thigh.  
  
“May I?” the Healer asked politely, moving to touch him. “I won't hurt you, I promise.”  
  
Nodding, Ron licked his lower lip and found it cracked. The Healer picked up a patch with a tube inserted into it and peeled off a layer from the underside.  
  
“It's what the Muggles would call a drip,” he explained, gently pressing the patch to the pulse point on Ron's wrist. Ron realised for the first time that the bandages on his arms had been removed. His skin was marked with angry scars everywhere he had cut on his last day in Azkaban. “But we have the means to get rid of the horrible needles that they use. Magic will immediately allow the potion to absorb through your skin and into your body.”  
“What's the potion?” Ron asked thickly.  
“A nice heady mix of painkillers, anxiety soothers and later, when you need to sleep, we can put sedative in there too. But not now. If you feel like you've had enough – the potions can make you feel a bit tom and dick, see – you can just pull the patch off and put it on the unit there. Okay?”  
  
Ron nodded, and nearly moaned as the painkillers seemed to automatically take effect in his system.  
  
“As you can see,” the Healer turned away as he spoke. “Mr Weasley is clearly in no state to be moved anywhere at present, and certainly wouldn't be a suitable candidate for a return to prison. I think my colleagues and I are in agreement that, if moved anywhere, he should be moved to a psychiatric unit in the country, where he can fully recover.”  
“To be moved back to prison where he can get ill again.” Harry sounded tired as he spat at the representatives from the Ministry.  
“Well, what's the point of him bothering with another hospital then?” the Head Gaoler asked spitefully. “Let's just throw him back in his cell now and save both time and money in the process.”  
  
The shouting started up again and Ron groaned. The Healer looked at him apologetically and gave him a grimace.  
  
“He's not going anywhere,” Kingsley's voice roared eventually, easily drowning out all the other voices in the group. “And that's final. You've had it from the Healers and now you're hearing it from me.”  
“You're not the be all and end all, Shacklebolt, I'll go to the Minister-” the head of the Wizengamot retorted, puffing out his chest.  
  
Ron couldn't help it. He laughed. The man looked like a child in his father's work clothes, playing at being a grown up. All faces turned back to him in his bed and he froze.  
  
“If I were you, Weasley, I wouldn't be laughing. You're in a precarious position. Accused of child murder and found mid-suicide attempt. Looks like a guilty conscience to me.”  
“Shut up, Morris, and get back to your foul hole on the rock,” Kingsley snapped.  
  
Ron didn't expect for the man to swallow it, but to his, and everybody else's blatant surprise, the man stormed off in a whirl of damp-looking robes, and his companions followed him. With a huge huff of annoyance, Charlie threw a filthy look after them and then stomped back to Ron's bedside. He reached up to put a hand in Ron's hair and didn't hide his hurt well when Ron ducked out of his way. He lowered it eventually and put it awkwardly in his pocket.  
  
“Hey,” he said. “It's so good to see you awake.”  
“Makes a change from your ugly snoring mug,” George put in, throwing himself back down into the seat next to Harry's.  
  
Harry entered the room last and closed the door behind them all. Only Kingsley and the Healer remained who were not immediate relations. Ron relaxed, loosening his shoulders and burrowing back into the bed.  
  
“So what's going on?” Ron asked finally.  
“They heard that you'd woken up. So much for my secrecy contract and spells,” Kingsley muttered. “They wanted to take you back to Azkaban immediately.”  
“Where I belong.”  
“You _don't_ belong there,” Harry cut in sharply. “You belong at home with me.”  
“Actually, right now, you belong in hospital,” the Healer interrupted.  
“Don't start again,” Ron begged. “Am I staying here or what?”  
“Well...” the Healer looked nervously at him. “Our recommendation is extended hospital care but... we can't care for you here, Mr Weasley.”  
“You want me to go to the loony bin,” Ron said.  
“It's not the loony bin,” the Healer assured him. “It's not. It's a small unit set in the countryside, you'll have twenty four hour medical care and some freedom to get fresh air and get well again.”  
“What if I don't?”  
“Then you stay there until you do. You _will_ get better, Mr Weasley. Wizardkind are well equipped to heal depression, even to the extreme depths which you have suffered. I promise you, one day, you will feel yourself again.”  
“I don't think I can remember what that feels like.”  
“You will,” Harry promised, picking up his hand. “You're going to be fine, Ron.”  
“Not if I go back to Azkaban I won't.”  
“I told you, I won't let that happen.”  
  
“Harry...” Ron shook his head. “Don't kid yourself.”  
“And don't you be too negative,” George pointed out.  
  
Perhaps the look on his face silenced them. Ron was glad when nobody spoke any more of positivity.  
  
***  
“Ha, snap!” Charlie crowed, slamming his card down on the mattress and throwing himself back as the explosion rose in between then.  
  
Ron snorted and threw his cards down. He'd not really wanted to do anything but sleep, but Charlie was nigh on irresistible. He'd been that way since he'd been born, if he was to be believed, charming old ladies, girls, boys and his siblings from day one. Ron had been in an intense psychological session all morning, with the Healers attempting to mend him through regression. He felt drained from reliving all the experiences of abuse he'd gone through in Azkaban and had finished the session in floods of tears, unable to stop, shaking like a leaf. They'd returned him to his bed, plugged him with the magic potion which made his anxiety go away, and left him in Charlie's care.  
  
Charlie was easily bored, though, and always had been, and had tempted Ron into a game of exploding snap.  
  
“I'm bringing in my chess board next time,” his second oldest brother said decisively. “I've had enough of nearly losing my eyebrows in the name of a victory.  
“Then don't get so excited about it.” Ron yawned, tiredness pulling at him.  
“What's the point of playing if you don't enjoy it?”  
“I didn't want to play,” Ron laughed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.  
  
He heard the sound of shuffling cards and the slap as they landed on the table next to his bed. Charlie, unable to stay silent for too long, spoke again.  
  
“Bad morning? You looked a right state when you came back in. I didn't want... I didn't want you to disappear into yourself. That's why I made you play with me, Ron.”  
  
It took all his courage not to pull away when Charlie's hand covered his own. Ron swallowed hard and forced himself to do as the therapists had recommended: 'Charlie is my brother, Charlie loves me, Charlie will not hurt me.' He spoke the words in his head, over and over, until his brother's touch became more bearable.  
  
He still jerked when another hand brushed some hair away from his eyes, which flew open. Charlie's concerned face was not far from his own.  
  
“I remember when you were tiny, and you would curl up in my lap and hug me and not let me get up for hours on end, until I needed the loo so badly I thought I would piss my pants.”  
“I'm not four any more.”  
“No, but that doesn't mean I want to look after you any less, mate. All through the war, I had to sit by whilst you were off gallivanting, hunting horcruxes, nearly dying at every single fucking corner and all I could do was wait to hear your name in the list of the dead. Now you're in the shit _again_ and I can be here this time. Not just for you, but for Harry too. I want to help you Ron, and George does too.”  
“I know you do.” Ron licked his lips and somehow forced himself to hold Charlie's gaze.  
“So let me, eh?” Charlie implored, giving Ron's cheek a little pinch. “Let me help you. Talk to me, if you want. About anything.”  
“Charlie, I can't even talk about it to the Healers unless they lock me into a spell which forces me to do it.” Ron shook his head. “I can't... I can't get the words out by myself.”  
“And that's okay. I'm not going anywhere, I can wait. Like an annoying house ghoul. And I don't give up.”  
  
Ron laughed and closed his eyes again. Charlie laughed with him until they both fell quiet.  
  
“I don't know if I should say this,” Charlie said quietly. “I... I don't know if it'll help or not.”  
“What?” Ron let his head loll to one side on the pillow and saw the worry lines etched in Charlie's brow. It was the first time he could ever remember seeing them and wondered just how many of them were down to him alone.  
  
His brother leant back in his chair, clearly deep in thought. Ron watched as muscled arms folded over a broad chest, and one leg in ripped jeans folded up, setting a dragonhide boot to rest against the frame of the hospital bed. Charlie seemed to become several sizes smaller, for all his brawn.  
  
“When I was still at school, I knew that I was... that I liked boys. Back then I still liked girls, too... I had girlfriends... but it was so much better with my best friend behind greenhouse four. It was electrifying.”  
“Charlie-”  
“Just listen to me,” Charlie begged. “We thought we were invincible... everyone does when they're sixteen, right? Well... one night we decided we were going to have a party in the Forbidden Forest. Somehow none of the teachers twigged, which is weird, considering it was all anybody could talk about for days. We were all well excited... there were going to be cigarettes, and booze... and sex.”  
“Rebel.” Ron roused a grin for him.  
“Aye.” Charlie smirked to himself, but his expression quickly sobered. “I went with my best friend and our plan was to get off our faces, maybe smoke some baccy... then disappear and fuck for the first time. Don't throw up.”  
“Wasn't gonna.”  
  
“But we got a bit too into the party. I was with Tonks when I saw him, backing some fifth year Ravenclaw into a tree, snogging him for all he was worth. I should have intervened, I guess... Quidditch Captain and all... he was under age and I suppose Flavian could have forced the issue... but I was too angry. I grabbed the nearest bottle and ran off, trying to medicate my broken heart...” Charlie laughed at himself and shook his head. “But stupid me, heart first, head second, didn't look where I was going... got royally lost and finally had to admit it. I stopped for a bit, sat down for a drink and then he announced himself.”  
“Who?” Ron asked, confused, feeling the steady flow of potion coursing through his veins.  
“The seventh year who'd followed me.” Charlie's expression darkened. “He said he'd been watching me for a few years and that it was all about the school that I swung both ways. I'd had a good few drinks by that time and he was quite good looking. I'd never spoken to him before... he got down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders and told me that I deserved better... that he could make me feel better.”  
  
For the first time, Ron realised where his brother's story might be going. He stiffened, mouth opening slightly, and he made to speak, to tell Charlie that he didn't have to go on.  
  
Charlie ignored him.  
  
“I enjoyed snogging him. I'm not going to lie. He was older and he knew more moves and soon his hand was in my pants and it was good. But he wanted more and I didn't want to do that with him... I didn't know him from Adam and, to be honest, I wanted Flavian. I was in love with him, but had no idea until that point.”  
“I hope you kicked him in the balls and ran away.” Ron said it, even though he guessed that wasn't what had happened.  
“I tried, but he was too strong and... I realised for the first time that I wasn't invincible.” Charlie's smile was strained when he looked at Ron. “I can't pretend to have been repeatedly raped, Ron, like you have. I can't pretend to understand how fucking horrible that must have been for you. But I've been forced against my will, and I've never forgotten how much it tore me up.”  
“Did you report him?”  
  
Charlie shook his head. “I was too... ashamed. I didn't want anyone to know that he'd overpowered me, taken something from me that I didn't want to give. He never bothered me again, never even so much as glanced my way.”  
“Did you tell anyone?”  
“Who else did I run to in those days with all my problems?” Charlie rolled his eyes. “My big brother. When I'd convinced him not to go and castrate the guy, Bill was everything I needed him to be. Understanding, a shoulder to lean on. And I got over it. I wanted you to have that person, someone to lean on... and I guess, for you, someone who knows just a little bit what it's like.”  
  
Ron nodded, emotional again, and looked away. Charlie touched his hand again and Ron managed to accept it immediately.  
  
“You didn't have to tell me that,” he mumbled, reaching up to wipe his eyes.  
“Yes I did,” Charlie said firmly. “And with your permission... I'm going to go to Bill. I'm going to imply what you've been through. I know, Ron, that he won't be able to hold back from you after that, and you need all the support you can get. I know he doesn't really believe that you killed Molly. He doesn't. He's just, as he's always been, afraid of letting mum down. And mum's been conned by Percy, like she always was when we were kids, into believing something which wasn't true – except this time it's a lot bigger than who broke one of the kitchen chairs, or who spilled what on the carpet, or who didn't do the washing up when asked.”  
“I don't blame him,” Ron admitted. “I know what it's like with her. You know your own life is going to be hell if you disagree with her.”  
“Don't you dare forgive him so easily,” Charlie barked. “No, Ron. He's done you a massive wrong and I sure as fuck won't be forgiving him for a long, long time for abandoning you, and me and George as well. We've been as good as disowned by them all and it makes me sick. But I'm willing to make amends, for you, if you want me to – if you can bear to let him back into your life. If he comes, I'm pretty sure that Dad will too.”  
  
Ron weighed up his options.  
  
“I don't think I want people in my life who didn't trust me when I said I didn't commit murder,” he said finally. “But to a Wizengamot... it would look good if they were willing to support me.”  
“It would,” Charlie agreed.  
“Don't tell him everything, though,” Ron said, turning his head so quickly that his neck cricked. “Not... not the details. Not how often. I don't want them to know everything.”  
“I won't,” Charlie promised, his voice soft. “Can I give you a hug? Because my Weasley need to protect is driving me bonkers.”  
  
Ron snorted and nodded and let Charlie hug him, holding him in a gentle embrace which Ron found it easy to allow. It was nothing but warm and caring, with not a hint of a threat.  
  
“Here's another thing which I'm not supposed to tell you,” Charlie whispered into his ear. “Harry's at the Ministry today, formally applying for an appeal against your sentence, and requesting that they use a potion which will give them an absolute true testimony from you. One where it's impossible to lie after consuming.”  
“Veritaserum's illegal.”  
“It's not Veritaserum. Just before you... before you were moved here,” Charlie skirted over his suicide attempt with aplomb, “Harry went to Snape and asked him to research, and brew anything he could find which might help.”  
“And Snape agreed to do it?” Ron asked in astonishment.  
“Willingly. He had no issues, apparently.”  
“I thought the old bastard hated me!”  
“He hates everyone, but you can kind of see why, knowing now what we know and all.”  
“He's still a sarcastic old bat.”  
“And you're still a rude little ginger brat to him, most likely. But Harry... Harry was his to protect for all those years, and with you so unwell... I think he couldn't resist agreeing when Harry asked. Old habits die hard and all that.”  
  
Charlie released him and gave him a playful tweak on the end of his nose. “This has all gotten heavier than Morgana's tits. How 'bout another game of snap and this time, we'll play a danger round, where the winner can't move back when they get the snap?”  
“Never become a Healer,” Ron advised, but couldn't help but feel deeply touched by everything his brother had said to him.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“He just sat there,” Harry said, gripping the mug of tea Hermione had given him, not caring that it was burning his fingers. “No joy, no emotion... he just sat there.”  
“Harry, Ron's not himself.” Her voice was gentle. “He's still very unwell and you were warned that he might not react to things how you wanted to him to.”  
“I know, but still.” Harry threw a sulky look at the fire. “I'm busting my gut here to try and keep him out of prison, and he doesn't even say anything when I tell him they accepted the appeal?”  
  
He put his mug down and ran his fingers through his hair. He'd been ecstatic, practically skipping, when he'd received the owl confirming the acceptance of the appeal he'd lodged against Ron's conviction, and that they would examine the potion and consider its use. He'd nearly been sick with excitement. He'd gone straight to the hospital to tell Ron and had been met with a blank stare and no response other than 'Okay'. To say it had taken the wind out of him was an understatement. He felt furious and hurt all at once.  
  
“You've got to be easier on him,” Hermione said sadly. “You've seen the reports from his therapy sessions. He's not coping, Harry.”  
“I know, but this might be his chance for a life, Hermione!”  
“Ron spent all that time in Azkaban thinking that his life was over. He tried to kill himself, Harry. Whatever dreams of a life he held I think you can safely say they're gone. He won't know what to do if they release him, he won't know what he wants from life.”  
“We dreamed of a life _together_ ,” Harry insisted, slapping one of his palms on the table. “We wanted to live together, grow old together. And now you're saying he doesn't want that any more?”  
“I said no such thing, Harry James Potter, now shut up and stop putting words in my mouth! Drink your tea!” Hermione cried, her eyes flashing in warning.  
  
Harry sheepishly did as she instructed and didn't look at her.  
  
“Don't blame him for not jumping with joy. He's too exhausted to hope, can't you see that, Harry? You were there yourself, the day I arrived home from Australia. You had given up, however briefly. You gave up too, Harry.”  
“I snapped out of it pretty quickly,” he muttered.  
“And hopefully Ron will too, but you've got to be ready for the fact that things might change. Maybe not everything, but some things.”  
  
Harry drank a gulp of tea and took his time swallowing.  
  
“What if they send him back to prison?” he sighed finally. “What if they don't listen, don't use the potion, don't listen to the hospital recommendations that he needs treatment, not a cell?”  
“Then we'll cross those bridges if we come to them. If they were to blatantly ignore the advice of the hospital or formal psychology reports, then they would be breaching Ron's human rights, and prisoner or not, he still has them.”  
“He won't want... he won't want what happened to him splashed everywhere for them to see. But that's what's going to save him, if anything. The abuse he's suffered at the hands of the system.”  
  
Hermione said nothing and Harry looked up at her to see her eyes wet.  
  
“I'm sorry,” he said automatically. “I know we agreed not to discuss what happened to him.”  
“It's fine.” She sniffed and delicately wiped her eyes. “I just find it so hard to think of anybody breaking him as they have. I know he's fragile and we've seen it often in the past but he always bounces back. He's always so strong, as strong as you or I. He's so...” she shivered. “He's just a beautiful person, and even though things between me and him didn't work out as I thought they would, I still love him, Harry. Seeing him like this hurts me as much as it hurts you, but it's even more, because your pain is my pain – it always has been. When you two got together... I felt so happy. My two favourite people together, in love, and they would look after one another.”  
“We were. We were doing okay. Until Percy decided to twist the knife.”  
  
They both drank from their tea at the same time. Harry continued to the bottom of his cup, trying to muster the courage to go to the hospital and see Ron again, but his enthusiasm had melted away with Ron's lack of appreciation for the appeal. He felt that if he never saw the hospital again it would be a very good thing.  
  
“You look tired,” Hermione said finally, getting up and taking his cup from him. “Why don't you go upstairs, have a long bath, and then go to bed? I'll go and sit with Ron in the hospital this afternoon – It's high time he knew I was back from Australia.”  
“Do you think that's a good-”  
“I don't care if it isn't.” She slammed the cups down in the sink with enough force to break them. “I've had enough of sitting here, not seeing him. I need to see him, Harry. I need to hear his voice. I know the hospital were afraid over-exerting him but I'm putting my foot down. I'm going to see him.”  
  
Harry didn't dare cross her emotional temper. Instead he got to his feet and stretched.  
  
“Okay. Tell him I'll go and see him tonight?”  
“You don't have to do that, George has already said he's going to go tonight.”  
“But I've not been away from him for that long since-”  
“And you wonder why you're angry with him?” Hermione laughed. “You never learn, do you Harry? Relationships breathe more easily with a bit of room. Give yourself the rest of your day off, get some sleep, and start afresh tomorrow. You'll see. You just need space to think things through and then tomorrow will be brighter.”  
  
“Now I know why Ron couldn't go out with you,” he muttered. “Bossy.”  
  
Hermione flung a tea towel across the kitchen at him with alarming speed. Harry dodged it with a grin. She was smiling at him.  
  
“Go to bed,” she repeated, and finally, he listened to her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Eight (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, angst, severe neglect, historical non-consensual sex, mention of suicidal ideation and acts. Incest.  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~6,565  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes. >> Love. A funny old game.

**Chapter Eight**  
  
  
The coffee from the hospital canteen tasted vile, but Harry had slept for so long that he needed it to wake up, regardless of the flavour. He had poured five sugars in it to help him along, and was drifting down through the hospital at a slow pace. Hermione had been right, the sleep had helped him clear his head and feel better about the whole situation. He understood Ron's reaction more clearly and found that he could tolerate it.  
  
He grunted good morning to the regular members of staff that he had grown to know during Ron's stay in the hospital and kept heading south, wondering how Ron felt about being stuffed below the ground with no natural sunlight to lift him.  
  
His thoughts turned to what they could do if Ron was vindicated. They could move to the country. Neither of them would be returning to work for a while and they were lucky enough that they could afford the break and a new house at the same time. Not for the first time in his life, Harry felt a swoop of gratitude in his belly for his parents' fortune. He hadn't even made a dent in it. He went oddly hot at the thought of them. When he was younger, Harry had dreamt of his parents every single day. At Hogwarts he had fallen asleep to those thoughts. But since everything with Ron had kicked off, and even before when they'd been getting used to their relationship, his concentration on his parents and started to fade.  
  
He wondered how they would feel about it all, whether they would be standing by him, whether they would be standing by Ron... the painful part was that he knew that they unequivocally would be. They would have stood by them both. Perhaps they would have been angry at Harry's lapses in faith.  
  
His preoccupation with his parents took him all the way to Ron's room, and he knocked once on the door before entering. He walked in to an empty room and he nearly dropped the rest of his coffee. Ron's bed was made but the redhead was nowhere to be seen, and it was only then that Harry realised that the usual guards were not keeping sentry on the door.  
  
“Ron?” he shouted, fear rising in his body and causing his stomach to churn. “Ron? Where are you?”  
“Potter, don't shout the building down...” a Healer said from behind him and Harry turned to look at him.  
“Where's Ron?” he demanded immediately. “Where?”  
“In intensive therapy, where he normally is at this time of the morning.”  
“Oh.”  
  
Harry flushed, feeling foolish and sat down to perch on the edge of his bed.  
  
“But, actually, I'm glad you're here and I have the chance to talk with you alone. Are you in a rush?”  
“Nope.” Harry shrugged out of his jacket and waited. “What's up?”  
“Ron isn't taking to the therapy as well as we'd hope. He still gets incredibly distressed.”  
“You're really surprised?”  
“No. But we've come to a point, Mr Potter. A point where we can't provide any more help than we already have. Our potions are barely working, our therapy, we feel, is causing more harm than good. Ron must be moved to another psychiatric unit if he is to get better. We need to submit this information to the Ministry. It will coincide with your appeal and now is a good time for us to tell them. He is seriously unwell as a result of the abuse he's suffered, and this will go in his favour.”  
  
Even though Harry knew it was best for Ron, his heart was sinking. The thought of more visiting hours, more time where he and Ron could not interact completely, was sickening. It felt like they would never properly be alone again. At first Harry had just wanted to hold Ron's hand, but his feelings had moved on, and every night for the past week he had wanked himself senseless, imagining Ron was there with him. His physical needs were rearing their head and they were driving him mad.  
  
“I know what you're thinking and it must be very hard for you see him like this and to not be able to... to be with him as you might want to be,” the Healer said, reading his mind. “That's why we are putting in for an assessment for a home which gives patients more freedom, in that they are each given a small flatlet space. As long as they can be trusted with sharp objects and cooking appliances, they can live dependently but with medical supervision every day. They have their own keys, their own bedrooms. Obviously the management have access to every room, but no other patient does. You would be able to, ah, spend time with Ron in a way which I'm sure you would both like.”  
“I do,” Harry muttered. “Not sure how Ron's going to feel about that...”  
  
“Feel about what?” Ron asked from the doorway, where he was fully dressed in old jeans and a t-shirt, leaning on the walking stick he needed to get around.  
  
Harry was surprised when the redhead walked straight for him and bent to give him a kiss on the lips. It was more bold and forthright than Ron had been in any of the weeks that he'd been in hospital.  
  
“I'll leave you two to talk,” the Healer said tactfully, and withdrew from the room.  
“Budge up,” Ron said, chucking his stick in the gap between his bed and the cabinet next to it.  
  
After Ron had settled himself, Harry picked up his and laced their fingers together. He stroked his thumb over Ron's knuckles.  
  
“Have they said anything to you about your care?”  
  
Ron nodded. “They want to move me on because they don't think they can help any more. Something about a place with independent flats? They told me at the start of my session this morning.”  
“Well... the Healer was just saying it would be better for you because we could get our relationship back on track... physically.” He said nothing more and waited for Ron to react.  
  
The redhead was quiet for a good while, clearly thinking about how to answer. He shifted and brought one leg up beneath his body, never letting go of Harry's hand.  
  
“I miss you,” Harry whispered. “I'm so desperate to have you in bed, Ron, you've got no idea.”  
“I think I do.” Ron laughed. “Oh Godric, I do, Harry. When I was first in there... I thought about you _all_ the time. All I wanted was to fuck you... but then... but then...” he trailed off, clearly fighting something. “But then I was raped.”  
  
Harry was overcome with respect for Ron in having the strength to say it aloud. Ron had been brought up in a household where Voldemort was You-Know-Who, and bad things were either not discussed or given a silly nickname to lessen the fear.  
  
“I was raped,” Ron went on. “Loads of times. And I stopped thinking about you because I couldn't bear to think about what I wasn't ever going to get again.”  
“But now... now you could have it again.”  
“I could.”  
  
Silence descended and Harry waited, fighting the urge to beg Ron not to push him away. If Ron did he felt it would be completely understandable, if crushing.  
  
“Don't think that I'm never going to want sex again. I mean... you're wearing those jeans, and you know what they do to me.”  
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot... they were all I had clean and Hermione told me she wasn't doing any more washing.”  
“And don't think we won't be discussing the fact that she's been in the country for weeks and you never told me later, mate,” Ron said with narrowed eyes. “Because we will. Look. Our relationship... we were happy, weren't we? With me on top most of the time but you getting your power kicks with blow jobs and... other stuff.”  
  
Ron shot him a naughty grin and Harry laughed.  
  
“I still love you,” Ron whispered, leaning close. “And I still want you. But I don't want anyone else touching me and I don't think... not even you... I don't think I could bear being... having you fuck me, Harry. I'm sorry if you've forever had a dream of being on top every time.”  
“I haven't,” Harry assured him.  
  
He enjoyed it sometimes, but it wasn't his main drive.  
  
“Well don't worry then. I'm going to get into flaps and freak out and just... lose it. Probably a lot.” Ron shrugged. “But as they keep telling me, 'anyone would'. If they send me back to Azkaban... I know what'll happen, and you do too, I think.”  
“I don't think about it,” Harry admitted.  
“Why would you? Nobody would. If it was you, I would be beside myself at the thought of you going off to die. And I will, Harry. No matter what they teach me, no matter how well I get in the meantime, if I go back, this will all be undone, and I'll be dead in a matter of weeks. It's soul shattering in there and they're trying to piece me back together here but...”  
  
He broke off, emotion overwhelming him, and he looked down at their joined hands.  
  
Harry leant over and kissed the top of Ron's hair. Ron looked up and they were nose to nose.  
  
“I can't believe you waited for me.”  
“I'd've waited a fuck load longer, Ron.”  
  
They kissed then, with dry lips and a hunger which Harry was relieved to feel mirrored in Ron's body. He let Ron's jaw work against his own and accepted the tongue which came into his mouth. He released the hand he held when Ron tugged it and was pleased when two hands curled around his back and pulled him closer.  
  
“Fuck yes,” Harry whispered against him, allowing Ron to press him back down onto the hospital bed.  
  
He didn't care that the door was unlocked or that anybody might walk through it at any moment. All he cared was that Ron's weight was pinning him into the mattress and his mouth was practically being fucked with an eager tongue. His blood was pounding in his ears. He couldn't help the way that his cock started to grow in his jeans.  
  
“Missed you so much.” Ron's breath tickled across the skin of Harry's throat and he moaned when it was kissed. “So much, Harry.”  
  
Harry arched up into Ron's body and smoothed his hands down the back of Ron's t-shirt. He gripped with his nails and Ron let out a little happy sigh. Harry kept on downwards and grabbed an arse cheek apiece and pulled them apart, as he had done so many times before.  
  
Ron jerked up, his eyes wide and frightened, and Harry froze. He watched as Ron's expression crumpled and felt him begin to shake.  
  
“What?” Harry removed his hands and brought them where Ron could see them. “What's wrong?”  
“He did that to me,” Ron whispered. “He...”  
  
Harry said nothing as Ron collapsed painfully on top of him, hiding his face away.  
  
“It's okay,” Harry murmured to him, bringing one hand up to stroke his hair. “He'll never hurt you again. I'll make sure of it. Nobody's ever going to get the chance to hurt you ever again.”  
  
He kissed again and held Ron tightly. They were still in place when the door flew open, and a Healer burst into the room, followed by Kingsley.  
  
“Oh!” the Healer cried, and Harry would have laughed at his face had Ron not been so upset in his arms.  
  
“Just give us a minute,” Harry asked, feeling Ron tense again.  
“Harry, this is urgent,” Kingsley said firmly.  
  
He opened his mouth to protest but Ron sat up, hastily wiped his face on his arm and gave Harry a look. Wordlessly, Harry followed suit.  
  
“What's happened?”  
“They've listed an appeal hearing.”  
“When for?” Harry leapt off the bed, both shocked and excited.  
“Tomorrow.”  
  
Silence engulfed the room and Harry looked at Ron, who was still pale from the unknowing mistake he'd made. He reached out and touched his shoulder.  
  
“You can do this,” he said automatically, dropping to his knees and looking up into Ron's face. “You can stand there and... wait, did they permit use of the potion?”  
“They did.”  
  
“Then I actually did it,” Harry said, shocked. “I actually... I did it?”  
“You did it,” Kingsley confirmed. “They have tested it, eked it out, tried to find fault with it, questioned Snape, and they were forced to admit it was perfection, perfectly legal, and that not using it, in light of Ron's current health, would be a cruel injustice.”  
“And they'll take the testimony he gives and not question it? When he says that he didn't kill Molly, they'll revoke the sentence and he'll be free?”  
  
An uncomfortable look passed between the two men by the door.  
  
“We will still be recommending release with the condition of at least a period of one month in our recommended psychiatric unit. I'm sure you appreciate the necessity of this?”  
  
Harry looked at Ron to gauge his reaction.  
  
“It's okay,” Ron said croakily. “They're right. I need to get better. I need more help.”  
“As long as you feel all right about it.”  
  
Ron nodded and reached out for Harry's hand, which he gave, and loved the squeeze of his fingers that Ron gave him.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“Everyone's staring at me,” Ron muttered, hating how hard he was blushing.  
  
Word had, as always, travelled fast in the Wizarding community about his Appeal Hearing. He couldn't see for the floating rectangles of light which came from the photographers' flashes. They'd arrived early to try and beat a thick crowd of paparazzi, so that he could hide out in a small room behind the Court chamber and calm down before the hearing started. He'd still be able to do that, but the clamouring journalists weren't helping his anxiety. With a lurch of his stomach he saw Rita Skeeter lurking at the back.  
  
She still reported, but much more cautiously after Hermione had finished with her.  
  
“Nearly there,” Charlie muttered bracingly, shoving a photographer out of Ron's way with a forceful arm. The man stumbled back into the others and they went down like dominoes. Ron tried hard not to laugh.  
  
Finally, they reached the silence of the waiting chamber, which an escort gestured them in to, and as soon as the heavy wood closed behind them, the sound of relief was collective.  
  
“Bloody circus,” Charlie huffed, rolling his neck to try and ease his bodily tension. “I don't know why the Ministry let them in.”  
“They'd only break in if they didn't,” Ron pointed out.  
  
He undid his cloak and hung it over his arm. He sat down, waiting for the fear to kick in. The last time he'd been in that very room, it had been just before he'd been sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban. He was very aware that he would shortly be expected to swallow a potion in front of the entire Wizengamot and give an honest testimony no matter what questions they asked him. He had nothing to hide, but the thought of having to speak about anything other than the matter at hand made him nervous.  
  
There was a sudden knock on the door and the escort opened it; two figures darted in and the photographers were nearly whacked by the wood as it shut again. Ron looked up, expecting to see officials, but was surprised by who they actually were.  
  
“They wouldn't let me come and see you in hospital,” Audrey explained, hurling herself at Ron.  
  
He staggered under her weight, unable to comprehend her affection. Her embrace was tight and warm and he allowed himself to return it, but really he was too busy looking at the other visitor. He hadn't seen his oldest brother in months, but he looked to have gained years in age since then.  
  
“You came,” Charlie said. “Was beginning to think you wouldn't.”  
  
Ron observed their brief hug from over Audrey's shoulder whilst she sobbed on him. He wanted to comfort her, but their appearance had overwhelmed him and it wasn't what he needed. Gently he pulled away from her and put his hands on her shoulders. She was sobbing.  
  
“What's wrong?” he asked.  
“I just... you... you look so different, so thin...” Her eyes swept up and down his body. “And this is... all... my... fault!”  
  
She buried her face in her hands and turned away from him. He looked at Charlie, alarmed, and swallowed nervously.  
  
“This is nobody's fault but Percy's.” Charlie put an arm around her shoulder. “He caused this, he's the one that made them go after Ron, not you. And you tried to stop them with the truth, but they wouldn't listen. Hopefully today that wrong will be put right.”  
“He's here,” she wailed miserably. “In the gallery. And _she's_ here.”  
“She?” Ron frowned.  
“Ginny,” Audrey went on. “She's with him, I've seen them...”  
“Let them watch.” Charlie shrugged. “They'll see justice be done.”  
  
Whilst the conversation carried on, Ron met Bill's eye and found he didn't know what to say to the man who had abandoned him to prison, for life. Bill was pale, his hair down in long curtains around his face. To his shock, Ron thought he saw some grey peppered through the striking red. Bill was too young to be going grey. Bill was only ten years older than he was.  
  
“Ron...” Bill said finally, his eyes full of apology. “I'm... I don't know what to say.”  
“I don't know what to say to you, either,” Ron admitted. “Not sure I even want to say anything to you.”  
“I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. I didn't...”  
“Mean to side with him against me?” Ron found it easy to laugh at that moment. “Come on, Bill. Don't lie. You're not the sort of bloke that lies like that. You sided with him because it was easy and you're only here right now because you feel guilty after Charlie's told you what happened in Azkaban. That's okay. But I'm not going to jump into your arms full of fucking forgiveness. I know who's stood by me during this and who left me for dead, and I'm not going to forget it any time soon, all right?”  
  
Even he was surprised by the grit in his tone. Bill had gone even paler and gave him a nod.  
  
“I'll be... I'll go and sit in the Courtroom, then,” he murmured. “Good luck... though I don't think you need it today.”  
“I need it every bit as much today,” Ron countered, hiding his trembling fingers. “They might as well just pass a death sentence if they decide to return me to prison.”  
  
Bill opened his mouth as if to speak, but changed his mind and exited the room. A roar of sound from outside washed into the room, but then disappeared behind his retreating back.  
  
“Well that blows.” Charlie gave a disappointed tut. “Hoped it would go better than that.”  
“I don't care.” Ron clenched his fists. “I just want this to be over with.”  
  
Audrey, who had managed to stem the flow of her tears by wiping them on her sleeve, suddenly piped up again.  
  
“There's something you should know-”  
  
Another door on the other side of the chamber opened then, and there stood a serious-looking witch dressed in the formal attire of the Wizengamot.  
  
“They are ready for you now, Mr Weasley. You must take your seats,” she addressed Charlie and Audrey.  
“Ron-” Audrey tried again, but the witch cut her off.  
“We do not have time for idle chit chat, Mrs Weasley. Now please take your seat.”  
“Miss Carter,” Audrey corrected. “I am divorcing my husband, and am now going by my maiden name.”  
  
Stunned, Ron didn't have time to say anything before Charlie and Audrey were hurried from the room. He was left alone, and suddenly found himself on the verge of vomiting.  
  
“You may leave your cloak here,” the witch explained, suddenly kind. “You can collect it afterwards.”  
  
Ron carelessly threw it at a chair and didn't look to see if it landed. He swallowed and moved to the threshold of the doorway, and all he could see was a sea of faces peering back at him. Some in the stupidly shaped hats of the Wizengamot attire, many in the Public Gallery plainly dressed, others wielding cameras and notepads.  
  
“Ronald Bilius Weasley, you are invited to take the seat of the accused,” a high voice called.  
  
He was numb. He wondered whether he'd ever feel his feet again. His mouth was ten times drier than it had been back in the holding chamber. His fingers shook as he sat down in the chair in the middle of the room. He held his breath, waiting for the shackles at the wrists and ankles to come to life and hold him in place. They did not.  
  
“Mr Weasley, do you agree to submit to testimony under the potion which this Ministry has avowed suitable?”  
“I do,” he croaked.  
  
He nearly laughed then, thinking that the first time he'd thought to utter those words under oath would be at his wedding.  
  
“Then present the accused with the potion.” A little hand gesture was made and Ron waited, taking the time to look up at the faces looking down on him.  
  
He saw Harry, pale-faced and nervous, sitting next to Snape, who looked blank, and Hermione, who looked queasy. Charlie and Audrey sat with them, and Bill, awkward, was on the end of their row, next to George. To his horror, Ron saw the rest of his family looking down on him on the other side of the Gallery. It was the first time he had seen Ginny for a long time. She'd not been present at his sentencing. Her expression was cold and hard, her hair tied back. Percy's eyes were furious.  
  
“Thank you,” he murmured, accepting the goblet which would decide his fate. He tried to bury the belief that it would have been spiked to make him say the wrong thing.  
  
He swallowed it quickly, glad of the neutral taste. He gasped when he was finished and tiny tendrils of steam danced on the air in front of his face.  
  
“Open,” the wizard who had handed him the goblet instructed.  
  
Ron let him check that his mouth was empty and then handed the goblet back.  
  
“To demonstrate the ability of this potion, I am going to ask Mr Weasley a question, and I am going to ask him to try to lie in response. Mr Weasley, is your birth date 2 March 1980?”  
  
Ron opened his mouth to say yes, but his tongue froze and his throat seemed to dry up. He fought to speak and nothing would happen, and he tried and tried until he began to violently cough.  
  
“Some water,” the Judge said.  
  
Ron glugged at it when it was handed over, and then he coughed once more.  
  
“So now, I will ask the correct question. Mr Weasley, is your birth date 1 March 1980?”  
“Yes,” he confirmed, and the word came easily.  
“Very well,” the Judge said. “I will proceed to question you on the charge of which you have been accused – infantile murder.”  
  
Ron did nothing and tried to say sitting upright.  
  
“Were you present at your parents' house in the early part of the afternoon in which your niece, here on in to be called the deceased, died, Mr Weasley?”  
“Yes I was.”  
“And did you spend time alone with the deceased, Mr Weasley, whilst you put her down for an afternoon sleep?”  
“Yes, I did.”  
“Did you, at any point, feel any homicidal feelings towards the deceased?”  
“None,” Ron confirmed. “I loved her like I love my other niece.”  
“Is it true that you dropped your wand whilst carrying out the task of putting the deceased in her cot, Mr Weasley?”  
“Yes. It got caught on the edge of the cot as I bent down to give her a goodnight kiss,” he explained.  
“Why did you not retrieve the wand, Mr Weasley?”  
“Because at that moment, Harry came in, and kissed me, and I got distracted.”  
“A wizard uncaring of where their wand is?” the Judge asked. “Forgive me, but that does not seem plausible. What was Mr Potter talking about which had you so distracted?”  
  
Ron blushed then. “We were happy. We were planning to buy a house together and we were having a nice afternoon. We were kissing, and Harry suggested that we go home and...” he faltered.  
“That you what?”  
“That we went home and had sex,” Ron said, hanging his head with embarrassment.  
  
There was a titter from the journalists and the Judge called for order.  
  
“And this distracted you?” he went on.  
“Harry's pretty distracting,” Ron blurted, then blushed.  
“So the two of you went home, and you were unaware that you had left your wand in the deceased's temporary bedroom?”  
“That's right.”  
“And the first you knew of the death was...?”  
“The next morning, when Harry woke me up and we went downstairs and some Aurors told me about it. They wouldn't believe me when I told them that the last spell I'd cast, the Immobilis, was on a spider in my bathroom, which I'm afraid of, to get it away from me.”  
  
The Judge nodded and noted something down with his quill.  
  
“Mr Weasley, did you kill Molly Audrey Weasley accidentally?”  
“No,” Ron said firmly.  
“Did you kill Molly Audrey Weasley on purpose?”  
“No,” Ron said quickly.  
“Did you place any kind of spell on Molly Audrey Weasley which would have resulted in her eventual death?”  
“No.”  
  
The questions went on, all worded differently but meaning the same thing. After several minutes, the Judge paused, and set down his quill.  
  
“Are the Wizengamot satisfied that the defendant has answered all questions truthfully and thoroughly?” he asked of his peers. “If you are in agreement, raise your hands.”  
  
Ron wanted to feel triumph at their approval when every single hand rose, but nothing came.  
  
“Now, Mr Weasley, we just have a few more questions regarding your time in Azkaban Prison.”  
  
Ron froze. Nobody had mentioned anything about that to him. He immediately knew what they were going to ask.  
  
“Mr Weasley, we appreciate that this might be hard for you to discuss, but we would greatly appreciate it if you could be strong and answer for us. Your testimony will be crucial in improving conditions for others who are currently incarcerated.”  
  
Ron nodded, trying to hold on to the contents of his stomach.  
  
“Were you subjected to recurrent episodes of rape and physical abuse leading to non-consensual sexual contact during your time at Azkaban?”  
“Yes.” His voice came out as a whisper.  
“How many times, Mr Weasley, do you think you were raped over the course of the three and a half months you were in Azkaban?”  
  
Ron looked down at his shoes, trying to remember. He'd wanted to just block it all out but the therapists wouldn't let him. “Um... I dunno,” he croaked. “He used to come to me about... at least three times a week, from after about two weeks there? Until I got really ill... I don't know how long that was for... but then it started again.”  
“So, at minimum, we could estimate that you were raped at least thirty times?”  
  
A loud gasp came from somewhere in the gallery. He didn't want to know, but he thought it might have been his mother's.  
  
He nodded, unable to speak through the emotion choking him.  
  
“And were you always abused by the same Guard?”  
“Y-yes.”  
“And is the man in this picture that Guard?”  
  
The same clerk who had brought the potion and then the water handed Ron a picture. He shuddered.  
  
“That's him,” he agreed, thrusting the photograph away, not even able to touch it without his skin crawling.  
“Why, Mr Weasley, did you not report this treatment to another member of staff?”  
“Because I didn't think there was any point. I thought it was... I thought it was just what happened.”  
“Did you think this because you heard other rapes occurring during your incarceration?”  
“Yes.”  
“Mr Weasley, we understand that this question might be the hardest of all to answer, and we apologise for the deeply personal nature, but did the frequent occurrence of rape contribute to your recent attempt to take your own life through means of hanging and blood loss?”  
  
There were more gasps and the sounds of furious quills scribbling away. Ron didn't understand their surprise – he'd assumed his suicide attempt would be common knowledge.  
  
“It was, but it wasn't the only reason. I... wanted to die. I was put away for a crime I didn't commit, and I just... I couldn't cope with that. I know I was unwell for a bit... but when I decided to kill myself, I was actually 'with it'. I knew what I was doing and I knew I wanted it to work.”  
  
The Judge nodded and looked down at his parchment. “That draws to a close our questioning of you, Mr Weasley. Would you please take a seat to the side, over there.”  
  
Confused, Ron followed his hand to a row of empty pews.  
  
“What about my sentence?” he asked. “What's going to happen to me?”  
“All in good time, Mr Weasley, but we are not quite finished. The Wizengamot calls Miss Audrey Augusta Carter to give evidence.”  
  
There was a loud kerfuffle up in the gallery and Ron tried to see what was going on as he made his way on shaky legs to the requested seating. He met Harry's eye and found him just as surprised. Ron watched as Audrey descended from the Gallery with her head held high, but with her eyes still rimmed red. She sat down demurely in the chair that Ron had just vacated, and he too sat, locking together his quivering hands.  
  
“What's going on?” he mouthed to Harry, who shrugged in response.  
  
“Miss Carter, formerly known as Mrs Weasley, approached us yesterday to provide some information which prompted us to list this Appeal Hearing for today. She has prepared a statement to read out with the aid of a qualified Magical Solicitor, which the Wizengamot has approved. Miss Carter, you may proceed.”  
  
Ron watched, completely intrigued, as Audrey drew in a breath, pulling a sheet of folded parchment from within her robes. She straightened it out and before she spoke, she looked at him.  
  
“I would like to state for Ministry records that I never accepted the conclusion that Ronald Weasley murdered my daughter. I did try to make this view known at the time of his original trial but was not given serious consideration by the Wizengamot, who were told by my husband that I was 'mad with grief'. For this, Ron, I am truly sorry, and hope I can help you in whatever way in your recovery. You have always been like a brother to me and your friendship and care has deeply touched me.”  
  
She looked back down at the parchment she held, which had begun to shake along with her fingers.  
  
“I stand before the Wizengamot to provide evidence which I know is crucial to a true finding in this case. I am here to say that I know for a fact that Ron Weasley did not murder my daughter. Nobody did. Her death was an unfortunate act of nature, and I had been concerned for her health for some time before her untimely passing. Records of our visits to the Paediatric ward at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries have been lain before the Wizengamot for their perusal.”  
  
Drawing breath, Audrey seemed to taken on a glint in her eyes. She shook the parchment out and seemed to stand up taller.  
  
“Whilst I am convinced my daughter died a natural infant death, my evidence relates to accusations, and the reasons for said accusations, made against the Defendant. My husband, who, on the conclusion of this hearing will be served with documents to begin the process of our official marital separation, fabricated the charges against Ronald Weasley, his brother, in an act of vengeance.”  
  
“LIAR!” Percy bellowed down from the Gallery, his face an unappealing shade of puce.  
  
“Furthermore,” Audrey continued, ignoring him, “These accusations were built on a basis of another act considered illegal in Wizarding law.”  
  
“THIS IS PREPOSTEROUS!” Percy tried again, but was ignored by practically everybody; the entire courtroom seemed to be hanging on Audrey's every word.  
  
She took another deep gulp of air and went on. “Two nights ago, on returning from a visit to my daughter's grave, I overheard a conversation between my husband and his sister, Ginevra Molly Weasley, during which they were unaware of my presence.”  
  
There was a loud cry of shock from the Gallery and Ron glanced up, to see Ginny wide-eyed, her hands clamped over her mouth.  
  
“During this conversation, I heard my husband assuring Miss Weasley that there was no possible way that their brother would be released because there was no way that anybody knew about 'it'. Confused, I moved closer to the door and saw, quite clearly, my husband kissing his sister, a forbidden union by the laws of consanguinity.”  
  
There was more commotion up in the Gallery and Ron stood up, concerned.  
  
“My wife has fainted.” His father panicked loudly. “Somebody help me, please.”  
  
Courtroom guards rushed forward to help and the rest of them waited as they were escorted from the room. It seemed to take forever and, in that time, Audrey appeared to lose her nerve. She stumbled over the first few words as she started up again.  
  
“I... I t-then..” she cleared her throat. “I then heard my husband say to his sister that 'The little arse-fucker will get what he deserves for hurting you...' whilst he stroked his sister's hair. It is my belief that the charges were fabricated in vengeance on behalf of Ginevra Weasley, although I do not understand where the physical relationship between her and my husband fits in, nor do I know when it began. I believe the fabrication was the result of the split between Ginevra Weasley and Harry Potter and his subsequent relationship with her brother, the Defendant.”  
  
Whether that was the end of Audrey's speech or not, it was all she got to say as Percy seemed to erupt and began to storm down the steps towards her. Several Aurors attending the case leapt between them and formed a barrier, and unbeknownst to them, Audrey began to cry. Ron was up before he knew what he was doing. He reached her and put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him.  
  
“It's true,” she whispered. “Every bit... he was cheating on me... with his sister...”  
  
Over their heads, the Judge bellowed for order and a hush fell over the courtroom.  
  
“Miss Carter, thank you for your testimony. This has been given under the same circumstances as Mr Weasley's evidence. In light of the revelations which have come to our attention, we intend to fully question all other parties involved.”  
  
Someone let out a rough 'woohoo' from the Gallery. Ron suspected George. He fought back a smile. Audrey swayed against him and he steadied her.  
  
“Mr Weasley has answered our questions to a standard the Wizengamot feel should result in the repealing of the sentenced passed upon him late last year. We have taken on advice from St Mungo's and Mr Weasley's personal Healers, who recommend an extended period of stay in a psychiatric unit to continue his recovery. Despite this, we feel that the Defendant has suffered largely at the hands of the system and we therefore lift from him any sanction of imprisonment or decree for residence in a medical setting. Should he wish to enter any such institution, we will provide full support to him and his family. For the abuse suffered in Azkaban, we will discuss a form of compensation, though are sure that being able to return to his loved ones will be enough for now.”  
  
The room filled with the sound of standing people, who were chatting in murmurs and gathering together their belongings. Ron didn't know what to do. His legs felt numb. Audrey was pulled away from him, but he couldn't have said who by.  
  
“You did it,” Harry whispered suddenly in his ear. His arms were all around Ron, holding him tightly.  
  
They looked at one another, and Ron wondered if Harry's expression of disbelief was mirrored on his own face. He was free. Completely free.  
  
“I can't believe this,” he muttered into Harry's throat. “I can't believe it worked, Harry.”  
“Of course it worked!” Harry grinned at him. “You're not doubting the Great Potions Master, are you?”  
  
Ron looked over Harry's shoulder to where Snape was standing, awkwardly holding back and looking abashed at the joy around him. Breaking away from Harry, Ron walked towards him.  
  
“Thank you,” he said earnestly. “Thank you so much.”  
  
He wondered who it surprised more, Snape or the onlookers, when Ron reached out and grabbed him in a hug. As far as he knew, nobody had had the audacity to hug Severus Snape since the war, or probably long before it. There was no protest, however, from the poor man he had jumped on. Ron was stunned to feel a few pats on his back.  
  
“That's quite all right, Weasley. Potter still knows how to manipulate me all these years later.”  
  
With a weak laugh, Ron stepped back and opened his mouth to apologise, but the sound of shouting distracted him. All heads turned to the Gallery where Aurors were attempting to escort Percy away for questioning. The problem was that Percy had his arms wrapped around Ginny, who was sobbing, and they appeared to want to share a thoroughly physical goodbye.  
  
When the Aurors finally managed to separate them, Percy's face was blotchy and his eyes were unrecognisable, mad with a fever which seemed almost unnatural.  
  
“Can we leave?” George asked loudly. “Before my breakfast makes a reappearance?”  
“A very good idea, I think,” Snape commented, casting a disapproving eye up at the Gallery.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: Dreams of a Life – Chapter Nine (other chapters can be accessed via the fic name tag on my journal)  
> Pairing: Harry Potter / Ron Weasley and other mentioned canon pairings past and present.  
> Rating: R (for entire fic)  
> Warnings / Content: (To be updated for each uploaded chapter) Language, angst, severe neglect, historical non-consensual sex, mention of suicidal ideation and acts, mention of incest, familial rifts.  
> Word Count: Entire Fic ~50,866; This Chapter: ~5,757  
> Author's Note: This story will deal with heavy, distressing themes as it continues, including non-consensual sex. It is completed but will be posted progressively. This has not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The title is borrowed from a beautiful but harrowing film of the same name.  
> Summary: In a split second, life changes. >> Dreams of a Life.

**Chapter Nine**  
  
  
“I always knew there was something dodgy about those two,” George repeated.  
  
Harry's head was pounding. The vaulted kitchen was fuller than it had been in a long time and the sound was jolting. George, Charlie, Audrey, Severus, Hermione and Bill were all stuffed in with him and Ron. Bill sat looking awkward, not sure if he should be there or not. Audrey was still mopping her eyes and drinking in huge gulps.  
  
Someone had disappeared and bought champagne to celebrate the verdict. That probably had something to do with the volume, Harry thought, and sipped at his own glass. Ron was sat next to him, completely silent, not touching his own drink, and looking wan.  
  
“I think Ron needs to go to bed,” he announced. “You can all stay if you want. Plenty of room. All of the beds have sheets and stuff stored underneath them in boxes. Eat what you want. But I'm going to spend some time alone with Ron.”  
  
Ron didn't need prompting twice. He stood up and left the kitchen, with only a shy smile and a wave to everyone else. Harry followed, suddenly eager have Ron all to himself for the first time in a long time, without the threat of someone walking in.  
  
Their old bedroom was unchanged from when Ron had woken up on the fateful morning of his arrest. He entered the room as he normally would, shouldering open the door and immediately beginning to strip, leaving Harry to close the curtains before he flashed the well-to-do neighbours.  
  
When Harry turned around, Ron was naked bar his tight trunks; it would have been sexy if it hadn't highlight just how thin he'd become. Harry gave him a reassuring smile and set about stripping off himself, but he stopped when warm hands settled on his hips. Ron pulled him close before helping him pull his jumper off his head. Peering through lopsided glasses, Harry took in the freckles on the bridge of Ron's nose and on his cheeks, and the deep purple circles beneath his eyes – the product of such a stressful day.  
  
Without saying a word, Ron turned and climbed onto his usual side of the bed. Harry followed and immediately snuggled close to him, wrapping his arms tight around Ron's slim waist. He whispered a spell to extinguish the candles and they plunged into darkness. Ron let out a tiny sigh next to him and Harry didn't know if it was relief, happiness or fear. The last time he had known darkness was in Azkaban. The candles in the hospitals always burnt to some degree or another.  
  
“Do you want me to put them back on?” Harry whispered.  
“No.” Ron made the covers rustle as he shifted even closer, pressing their bodies together. “I've got you now. I don't need candles.”  
  
Harry was very glad that Ron couldn't see the blush on his face.  
  
“So what do you think about everything that happened?” he asked, changing the subject.  
“I don't really know... to be honest with you, Harry, I don't really give a shit, either. He's made his own noose, let him choke in it.”  
“Did you ever suspect that there was something going on between them? Because I fucking didn't.”  
“I never even thought they liked one another that much,” Ron admitted. “I mean... she was the baby, we all protected her as much as we could... but I've got no idea when anything like that could have started.”  
“What happens when... y'know... two people are found committing incest?”  
“It's a bit...” Harry could well imagine the face that Ron was making. “See, all of us are inbred. Sirius was my cousin, and distantly so is Malfoy... we're all inbred. But on that first degree it's not allowed... say he got her pregnant, and his magical core which is similar to hers, made from the same magical cores of our parents, would clash and the child could end up being a squib or be born with magic so crazy that Ministry would be forced to take it away.”  
  
Harry blinked, wondering just how much more he had to learn about Wizarding law.  
  
“What'll happen to them?”  
“Not really sure... most people aren't daft enough to get caught to be fair. And I'm sure they never intended to.”  
“I can't believe he made you suffer to make her happy.”  
“Harry... I don't care. I don't. I don't care what happens to him, either. If I never see him again it'll be too fucking soon. I want them both gone and out of my life for good.”  
“Then they will be,” Harry promised.  
  
They laid in companionable silence for a while, but Harry found that his brain just wouldn't switch off. He had Ron there, really real like he had been dreaming of for months, and his mouth wouldn't stay shut.  
  
“So what d'you think your mum and dad made of it?”  
“Harry, shut up! I'm so tired...”  
“I know you are but you're here and I can't get over that.” Harry squeezed him. “So just bloody talk to me, even if you fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.  
  
Ron snorted and gave him a kiss.  
  
“I doubt he's the golden boy any more,” he said finally. “Bill should dust off his trophy.”  
“And how do you feel about Bill coming crawling back?”  
“I told him I'll never forgive or forget that he abandoned me, so don't count on him sticking around.”  
“Did you really say that?”  
“Yeah, why?”  
“I'm proud of you.” Harry kissed him, too blind in the dark to see where so taking a random guess.  
“Don't be.”  
  
Ron stroked his hand over Harry's back.  
  
“So what do you want to do about the hospital?”  
  
Groaning, Ron rolled away, but Harry grabbed him and pulled him back. He kissed a bare shoulder and waited for a reply. When none came, he lightly tickled Ron's belly and dipped his forefinger in and out of his belly button. Eventually Ron started to laugh and Harry crowed in triumph.  
  
“I'd forgotten how fucking annoying you are,” Ron said huskily, turning his head back to look at Harry.  
“Just answer the question, Weasley.”  
Ron sighed. “I feel like I should go back... but I don't want to because I'm home now, and I'm with you... and it feels good right now. I know I could wake up tomorrow and be back in the middle of a bad spell but...”  
“What if we talked to them and paid them to supervise you at home, every day if they think its necessary? What if we worked it out so you didn't have to go anywhere to sleep overnight, but maybe went as a day patient? I was reading about some places like that last night. They look pretty good.”  
“Hmm.”  
  
Ron became quiet and Harry kissed his shoulder again, not wanting to push too much.  
  
“I s'pose we'll just have to talk to them about it. I'll need to go in tomorrow morning to get my medicine... doubt experiencing drug withdrawals would be fun.”  
“I'll come with you,” Harry offered immediately.  
  
He couldn't help his eagerness. It was flowing through him like poison. He never wanted to let Ron out of his sight again.  
  
“I know you will,” Ron whispered.  
  
***  
  
It felt insanely good to sit wrapped in just a dressing gown, holding a hot cup of coffee, looking at Ron across the table from him. Hair messy, eyes puffy with sleep and a slight dribble stain on his chin, Ron looked every bit as lovely as he ever had, and Harry was thrilled to have him there.  
  
“Looks like they had some party in here last night after we went to bed,” he commented, looking around at the empty bottles and dirty plates. “Charlie must've made his famous before bed fry-up.”  
“Could have washed up, messy bastard.”  
“About that,” Harry started, chewing on his bottom lip. “When you were in prison, and your mum didn't support you... Charlie left home. He's starting to get back pain from sleeping on George's sofa... and George isn't coping well with sleeping where he used to stay with Fred. I asked them to move in here, to fill it up a bit. But we never got round to making a decision. Now you're back... you should be part of that.”  
“You did what?” Ron asked, his mouth curling with amusement. “Is your offer still open after seeing all this shit?” he gestured to the filthy plates. “He likes to party.”  
“So did we, once upon a time,” Harry pointed out.  
  
“Did you invite them to move in because you wanted to fill the place up, or because you knew you'd need help with me if I ever got out?” Ron asked intuitively.  
  
Harry felt his cheeks burning. “Both, really. But I thought it might be good for you, to have some family around, to help... and yeah. I thought I would need support.”  
“It's okay,” Ron said gently. “It must have been hell for you, to be here alone.”  
“Been so much better since Hermione came.”  
“Where'd those scars on your hands come from?”  
  
Harry hid them, as if it would make Ron un-see the marks.  
  
“I had a bit of an... episode,” he said airily. “But you don't need to know about that.”  
“Someone else'll tell me.” Ron shrugged and drank his tea.  
  
Harry opened his mouth to argue but was interrupted by a pained groan from behind him. George appeared, looking extremely worse for wear. He groaned again and walked towards them, somewhat zombie-like.  
  
“Coffee,” he rasped, sitting down next to Harry on the long bench which served the huge kitchen table. “I need coffee.”  
“Good night?” Harry smirked, using magic to pour him a mug to his tastes and then levitated it over.  
“I should be asking you that question,” George yawned. “First night together in months... surprised you can walk straight.”  
  
Harry looked at Ron. They'd talked until the small hours and fallen asleep curled around one another. There'd been no mention of sex, not even a hint. Harry's libido had mysteriously disappeared, but he suspected it had something to do with his error in the hospital room two days previously.  
  
“You're so rude,” Ron said finally, smoothing over the moment. “What time did you lot all come to bed?”  
“Fuck knows, it was getting light I think. I'm only up to firecall Verity to say I won't be in.”  
“Who else stayed?”  
“Charlie... and Snape. Snape's somewhere. Dunno where. Bill left. Audrey went to bed really early and Hermione checked on her a few times through the night.”  
“Everyone find a room okay?” Harry asked.  
“Nobody complained. Oh, sweet Merlin, my head.” He tipped his face forward onto the table and rested his forehead there.  
“Go back to bed, we'll let Verity know you're still too drunk to come into work,” Ron said, wearing a smirk that Harry realised he had missed.  
“Can I take this coffee?”  
“Whatever you want.” Harry laughed.  
“Shhhhhhhh,” George begged, his eyes narrowed.  
  
They both watched him toddle off back the way he had come and Harry only just managed to wait until he was out of sight before he started laughing. Ron shook his head and laughed too.  
  
“Fuckers!” the shout drifted back down the hall and they laughed even harder.  
  
“He looks thin again,” Ron said finally, when the mirth had dried up.  
“He's been okay,” Harry assured. “We've all been watching him. Even Verity's in on it, she's been keeping us all updated on what he's like when he's at work. He did start talking to himself for a while just after you first went in but we upped our presence in the shop and he's not done it since that we've seen.”  
  
Ron reached out and grabbed his hand then, and with big, earnest eyes said, “Thank you for looking after him, Harry.”  
  
It had been Ron's unspoken job to look after George when the war ended. How it had happened, none of them could really say, seeing as Ron had spent half of his life being terrorised by the twins and had several rather large troubles because of them. But after Fred's death George had gravitated to him, and Ron had liked it, and so the relationship was cemented between them. Ron could never replace Fred, and Harry knew he'd never tried to. But George seemed to content to have someone there.  
  
“Of course I bloody looked after him.” Harry played with Ron's fingers. “I wouldn't just leave him, or Charlie, for that matter.”  
  
Ron seemed lost for words and Harry felt nervous under the intensity of his stare.  
  
“It's stuff like this we're going to have to get used to, I think,” Ron said quietly. “Somewhere along the way I lost the ability to cope with my emotions and I guess they're going to be hard for other people to deal with.”  
“I'll deal with whatever,” Harry said, getting up.  
  
He walked behind Ron and bent to put his arms around him. He kissed his cheek and inhaled the smell of him.  
  
“As Charlie would say, I love the bones of you, Ron, and nothing's going to change that. Got it?”  
“Even if I cry like a baby over everything?” Ron sighed.  
“Even if. D'you remember what I was like when the Battle finished? I had to run and hide whenever anyone did anything nice for me. 'Harry, here's a cup of tea'. Wah wah wah. It'll pass. And we'll get by.”  
  
Ron leant back against him and hugged Harry's arms close to his body.  
  
“I want to laugh,” Ron said softly. “I want to run and scream and do stupid things and be happy. Like I should have been doing for the past year but I was too bothered by what other people thought of us to let myself.”  
“I want you do do all of those things too. And I want to do them with you.”  
“Harry... I'm guessing we lost the house?”  
“I let it go.”  
“Good.”  
“Eh?” Harry frowned. “I thought we could start up the search again – maybe the place never even got sold in the end. We could try again.”  
“No.”  
“But you said you wanted to move?”  
“That was then, and this now, and I want to stay here with you... this is your home, Harry, and while I was happy when you wanted to give it up for me... now I can't let you do that. I don't care what you've done here before me. All that matters is what we do in it now.”  
  
Ron got up and turned to face him, his cheeks pink. Harry didn't protest when he was snatched up tight to Ron's body and kissed with much more vigour than expected. Harry was quite enjoying it, letting his glasses go askew, and feeling the swelling in the front of Ron's robe.  
  
“How about we go back to bed, eh... and see if we can't put George's comment about you not walking right into action?”  
“Are you sure?” Harry murmured.  
“Harry, I want to bugger you into next year,” Ron whispered filthily into his ear and Harry felt his stomach turn in that desired, loved way which Ron had always provoked in him. “And then some.”  
  
They kissed again and Harry thought maybe they wouldn't make it out of the kitchen. Only when a small cough from behind them interrupted did Ron let him breathe and release him. Harry noticed as the redhead swiftly rearranged the front of his dressing gown to hide what had become a monstrous erection.  
  
“Severus,” he called, with a quick wipe of his mouth on the back of his hand. “Morning.”  
“Morning... I just thought to say goodbye. Don't let me interrupt. Thank you for the hospitality. And alcohol... and food,” the older wizard finished somewhat sheepishly, looking at the dirty plates.  
“Enjoy yourself?” Ron asked.  
“It was... ah... your brothers are highly entertaining.”  
“If that's what you want to call it.” Ron's laugh was high and true.  
“Enjoy freedom,” Severus advised. “Now you have known capture there will be nothing like it.”  
  
He turned on his heel and walked away. Harry opened his mouth to comment on his dishevelled appearance when Charlie appeared in the kitchen doorway in his boxers.  
  
“Don't bother getting dressed, will you?” Ron said.  
  
Charlie merrily tossed Ron a one fingered salute and sat down at the kitchen table. “Last night was a good night. Best night in ages.”  
“Looks like it. You gonna clear this shit up?” asked Ron with a grin.  
“Later.”  
“That's a no then,” Ron mouthed over his head and Harry snorted.  
  
He was just about to suggest they go back to bed when the doorbell rang out shrilly through the house. Charlie jumped about a foot off the bench and Ron laughed at him.  
  
“It's like Paddington bloody Station in here this morning!” Harry groused happily as he jogged up the few stairs up to the hallway and made his way to the front door.  
  
He made sure that his dressing gown was tightly belted around his waist and that his cock had completely deflated from their moment of joy, and then opened the door. The sun was shining outside for what felt like the first time in forever. Harry sucked in a mouthful of spring air before really taking in who was on his doorstep.  
  
“Molly. Arthur.” He looked over his shoulder to check that Ron hadn't followed him and moved closer to them. “What're...”  
  
He looked at them questioningly. Neither of them appeared to have slept a wink since the day before.  
  
“Harry. Do you think Ron would be open to seeing us?”  
“I don't know. I really don't know.”  
“We would like to see him... to offer our apologies... but we understand if he's not up to seeing us.”  
“Come in...” Harry pulled the door back and gestured them inside. They stood like awkward strangers in the house in which they had once lived. “If you just wait in the sitting room... I can go and get him...”  
  
He closed the door behind them and took a deep breath. He had no idea how Ron was going to react, but remembering what he'd said to Bill, Harry didn't think there would be an emotional reunion, if that was what Molly and Arthur were hoping for. He made his way back to the kitchen, where Ron had started clearing up the mess made by the party, and Charlie was almost asleep, head on the table.  
  
“Who was it?” Ron asked, wringing out a cloth in the sink.  
“Um... well...”  
“Spit it out mate, I've got a bed to go back to.” Ron was laughing as he spoke.  
“It's your mum and dad,” Harry said quietly. “They wanted to know whether you would see them or not. I said I didn't know. They're in the sitting room, waiting. I'll go back and say no if you don't want to.” Harry was halfway back up the steps, ready to put on an apologetic face.  
“No, it's fine,” Ron said immediately, and dried his hands.  
“Do you want to get dressed first?”  
“Nope.”  
  
Ron's jaw was set as he passed Harry and began marching towards the sitting room. Charlie and Harry swapped a look before both of them flew after him.  
  
“Transfigure me a robe or something,” Charlie muttered as they approached the open door. “I'm in the buff here.”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and shrugged out of his own robe, glad of the fact he'd stopped to at least throw some pyjamas on before going downstairs to the kitchen that morning.  
  
“Thanks mate.” Charlie tried in vain to wrap it round himself, but there was no denying the fact that he was at twice as thick as Harry was around the waist and heavier in muscle everywhere.  
  
They both cautiously edged into the room and saw Ron standing in front of the fire, whilst their guests were seated.  
  
“Charlie,” Molly murmured, looking at her second eldest child with guilty eyes. “I wondered if you would be here.”  
“Harry was kind enough to give me a bed when you gave me no choice but to leave.”  
“Charlie...” Ron's voice was soft, but reproachful.  
  
Harry wondered then if Ron was going to surprise him with a show of forgiveness.  
  
“Why are you here?” the skinny redhead asked, standing at his full height, the collar of his dressing gown not hiding the angry red scar left by the rope with which Ron had tried to hang himself.  
“We wanted to come and apologise for our actions,” Arthur said. “We... we know that we have taken sides and, after yesterday... we acknowledge that it was the wrong side. We should never have doubted you nor favoured Percy in what he said.”  
“We should have trusted you,” Molly wept. “We should have known...”  
“Yeah, you probably should have,” Ron agreed with a nod.  
  
His calm seemed to unnerve them, and Harry wasn't surprised – he was quite unnerved himself. Ron stood like a statue, giving no clues away with his expression. He could have been talking to anybody, about anything. Not his parents about their abandonment of him.  
  
“We were so... so upset by what you've been through. We had no idea. Nobody even told us you were in hospital... that you'd tried to commit...” Molly broke down then and the conversation stalled as Arthur tried to comfort her.  
  
Ron didn't move. Again, Charlie and Harry swapped glances which were full of concern. It was unlike Ron to watch someone in tears and not be moved by it. In his youth he'd been awkward about it, but in his manhood he had always tried to be strong and helpful. George had probably caused him to perfect the art.  
  
“We're sorry,” Molly said, giving a little distressed hiccup at the end of her sentence. “Ron, so sorry... we've hurt you.”  
“Yes, you did,” Ron confirmed. “But I wasn't surprised, so don't worry about that.”  
  
The steel of his body crept into his voice and Harry held his breath.  
  
“You've never loved me like you loved the rest of them,” Ron went on, colour rising in his cheeks. “You've never treated me like the rest of them. I was just another boy, you wanted a girl, you've never been proud of me like you've been proud of the rest of them - what could I possibly do to make you proud of me when it's all been done before? Well there's a first for you... a son who got put in prison for murder and then tried to off himself.”  
“Ron, stop it, you know we both love you-”  
“And yet you didn't bat an eyelid when Percy accused me of murdering his daughter. You didn't turn around and insist I was innocent, did you? You left me for _dead_!” Ron's voice wobbled on the word 'dead'. Molly let out a sob. “So you can apologise all you like, but I won't be listening to it, and I certainly won't be forgiving you. I don't want you in my life.”  
  
Stunned silence followed his speech and Harry moved towards him.  
  
“I'm fine,” Ron said immediately. “Fine, Harry.”  
“Ron, you're clearly emotional-” Arthur tried to step in.  
“I am, but I know exactly what I'm saying and exactly what I want. I don't want you in my life. You think an apology can solve everything, but it can't. You abandoned me when I needed you the most that I've ever needed you. You're my parents. You're meant to love me, but you didn't even want to hear my side of it. You didn't try to contact me when I was in prison. As far as I know, this is the first time you're showing your face to Harry in months. Where was your support for him, eh? All that support you gave him through school was nothing, was it? Not when he decided to fall in love with me. Well you can bloody lump it. I love him, he loves me, and we're probably going to get married. And I'll be dead before I see you there pretending to be happy for us.”  
  
Harry knew better than to try and stop him as he made a beeline for the door.  
  
“And don't think you can get to me through Charlie or George, either. They're free to make their own decisions and they can move back in with you, or whatever, if they want to. But leave me out of it. I want nothing to do with you.”  
  
He was gone then and they listened to his footsteps until they faded. Both parents turned to look at Harry with horrified faces, but all he could do was shrug.  
  
“You've heard how he feels, you heard him ask you to leave,” he said quietly. “I suggest that you listen to him.”  
“Harry, surely you're going to try and talk him out of this?”  
“Why should I?” Harry shrugged. “He's a grown man who's been through hell. I think he's mature enough to make decisions for himself.”  
“Charlie?”  
“Leave me out of it,” the older redhead said, holding his hands up. “Ron's made his decision, and I don't blame him. You let me down too, mum, when you let me walk out. I can forgive that, maybe... but not how you treated Ron.”  
“George will-”  
“George will respect Ron's wishes,” Charlie said flatly. “Ron's been there for George through thick and thin, and George has repaid that debt by supporting Ron now. They're closer than you think.”  
“But this is silly-”  
“You try spending three and a half months locked up on a rock, being raped, and see whether you think it's silly then,” Charlie said scathingly, and then he left the room too.  
  
Harry wanted to kill them both for leaving him alone. He didn't know what to do or say. Molly started sobbing again and he felt nauseous, wondering if he had really caused such a rift in a family who had given him so much over the years.  
  
“You know where the front door is. Let yourselves out,” he said, hearing the faintness of his tone.  
  
He put his hand on the wall to support him as he started down the hallway, his head spinning.  
  
His love for Ron had ripped the Weasleys apart, apparently irreparably, and Harry had let it happen. He began wandering, letting his feet go where they wanted, until a gentle breeze caught face and he looked up. Ron was sitting in the small courtyard garden which was in the middle of Grimmauld Place. He was freely crying, tears dripping from the end of his nose onto his legs. Harry walked to him, unable to rush, unable to say anything. All the joy of the previous night and earlier that morning was gone, from both of them. Both of them seemed to have been crushed by a darkness.  
  
“H-Harry...” Ron choked.  
“That was very brave,” Harry said, feeling numb.  
“Brave or stupid,” he gasped in response.  
“Just brave in my eyes.”  
“What's wrong?” Ron looked up at him, squinting in the sunlight.  
“I caused this,” Harry whispered, fingers beginning to tremble. “It's all my fault. If I'd never told you that I was in love with you... never made you explore your feelings... It would...”  
  
Harry staggered as Ron's fist landed squarely on his jaw.  
  
“Don't fucking go weak on me now,” Ron shouted, his voice echoing around the bricked walls. “Don't, Harry. I need you. It's not your fault. None of it. Don't you dare say it is.”  
  
Strong hands caught him before he fell over and Harry breathed the smell of Ron through his nostrils. He didn't know which of them was shaking more.  
  
“I love you.” Ron shook him hard. “And if you blame yourself for this, I'll fall apart. So don't.”  
  
Harry held onto him for all he was worth.  
  
“Just _don't_ ,” Ron half-shouted into his ear.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
 **Two Years Later**  
  
When I was little, I never dreamt that my life would have been so complicated. Thought I'd go to school, try and pass the exams, get a badly paid job in the Ministry like my dad and find a girl who didn't totally hate the look of me, then get married to her. Pop out a few red-haired kids and live out my life like that.  
  
Funny, isn't it? How things turn out. I look at myself in the mirror, dressed up and ready to go. Never looked this smart in my life. Never worn robes as expensive as this. I would have happily done it in a t-shirt and jeans but Harry wanted us to do it 'right'. Dunno what right is, but I know some people would consider two gay wizards holding a handfasting really wrong.  
  
We don't.  
  
I don't know how it took us this long to be ready, to do this. I knew from the second that he was there, hanging over me on that hospital bed, that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life. Marriage was a part of that dream which seemed unavoidable. But two years have gone by and I don't know where they went, just that they were the happiest two years of my life.  
  
I reach up and straighten the neck of my robes, brushing against the fading scar on my throat. That scar has no place in interfering today, but it's a part of me now. I had to come to terms with what I did, what I nearly threw away. I can't regret it though. It got me out of Azkaban and back into life again. It let me dream again. Seems weird to view an attempt on your own life as a new beginning, but mine was. And that's why I won't hide this scar today; it made me what I am and gave me all that I have.  
  
It gave me Harry, and a relationship which was more intimate than it ever was before. I learned to really love someone, for all their faults, and be grateful for being unconditionally loved in return.  
  
The ceremony today will be small. Hermione. Charlie. Severus Snape who apparently _isn't_ wearing black, if you can believe that, and even more shocking, is bringing the mysterious partner he won't say anything about to the party we're holding later. George and Angelina, if she can get through the door because the twins in her stomach haven't made her even huger than the last time I saw her. George is in love. It's another example of how love can completely save somebody, like it saved me.  
  
And then there'll be Audrey. Still alone, but getting there. She's going to read something out which is a secret to the both of us.  
  
The ribbon will be it. We're not having rings, no flowers, no massive fuss. Just us and the people we love the most, all in the same room, together. Harry is going to have pictures of his parents and Sirius on him in his robes, so that they will be there, too. My parents won't be there. We've barely spoken two words since the day I told them to get out of my life. Maybe one day I will reconcile myself to the decisions they made, and what they did. Not yet, though. Not enough time's passed to let them share this day with us.  
  
“You ready to go then?” Charlie's voice calls out, and he sticks his head around the door.  
  
We're all older, but that bastard doesn't look a day over twenty-one. He gives me a wolf-whistle and then grins, pride shining in his eyes.  
  
“Look at you,” he says, stepping fully into the room. “You look really good, Ron. All grown up.”  
“I am grown up,” I point out, but blush at his compliments.  
“Aye, and doesn't it feel weird?” he laughs. “I remember changing your shitty nappies. Stank to high heaven.”  
  
I ignore him and turn back to the mirror. I want to be perfect for Harry. I want to give him this, my life and myself, in return for everything he's given to me over the past few years. Putting up with the mood swings, the pain, the tears, the phase I went through where I couldn't set foot out of the house without losing it. The brief, frightening period where I considered ending it all again, because I couldn't cope with learning to cope with my past.  
  
Harry has given me everything, and today, I repay him for that. I replay him with a life together. And I can't fucking wait.  
  
“Do I look all right?” Charlie asks, barging me out of the way with his arse and surveying himself in the mirror.  
“Why, who're you trying to impress?”  
“Nobody,” Charlie says, a knowing smirk twisting his lips. “That secret's for another today. Today belongs to you and Harry.”  
“I'll get it out of you when you're drunk later.”  
“Maybe you won't have to. Maybe you'll already know.”  
  
He winks at me and looks at the watch he got for his seventeenth birthday.  
  
“Fuck, you're going to be late.”  
“Harry knows me better than to think I'd actually be there on time.”  
  
I straighten my robes again. I look in the mirror, and take in the lanky, skinny boy who somehow turned into a man.  
  
A man who is loved and loves in return. A man who is ready to live a dream he once gave up on.  
  
 _-fin-_


End file.
